>>Hmm... @...SAYs are typically hard to maintain,
>
>Well can I bounce another idea of you then.
>
>If the premise is that the report will use fixed font (courier,10), I could create a one field database with a record for each row.
>
>The field coordinates a user selects would then determine which row and at which position the data element is inserted to. If multiple elements would be
>on the same row, the elements would have to be joined as in fld1+space(4)+fld2.
>
>If this could work, I could provide 'canned' templates and the user could add their own. The system could print out a 'grid' so they could determine positioning.

Well, sure, I imagine lots of schemes could be used to generate (semi-) custom reports with user-defined positioning. However, there is value to always putting the same information in the same places on a report.

What exactly are you trying to do?