What is best way to add trailing periods to text in a report textbox?

[haggis999]

I have created an Access 2007 application for use in running an annual photographic competition. A newly designed report shows a list of print titles, whose length typically varies in the range 4 - 40 characters. To the right of each print name there is a checkbox that indicates whether we have received that print. However, with the shorter titles it can be more difficult to rapidly read which is the relevant checkbox, as they are so far apart.

To resolve this problem, I would like to pad out all the titles with trailing periods. The padding would only apply for this report. Can anyone suggest a slick way to achieve this?

David

[June7]

I have a custom function (which I found on-line somewhere) to accomplish that:

Function Pad(varText As Variant, strAlign As String, intLength As Integer, Optional strFill As String = " ") As String
If Len(varText) >= intLength Then
    'if the source string is longer than the specified length, return the Length left characters
    Pad = Left(varText, intLength)
ElseIf strAlign = "L" Then
    'text aligns left, fill out the right with specified character
    Pad = varText & String(intLength - Len(varText), strFill)
Else
    'text aligns right, fill out the left with specified character
    Pad = String(intLength - Len(varText), strFill) & varText
End If
End Function

Or you can just do this in query or textbox:

[title] & String(40 - Len([title]), ".")

[haggis999]

Many thanks for your rapid response.

I'll give that a try tomorrow morning. It's midnight here in the UK and my brain has already started its shutdown sequence...


David

[rpeare]

Why not use row shading? Something like shading every other line a light shade of gray, similar to the old white/light green form feed paper used to be. I think it may even be a built in function of 2007+

[June7]

I have row shading and the results vary from printer to printer. Some will show the shade and some don't. And then there is what happens to the shading in photocopies, not always nice either.

[rpeare]

The photocopying yes, there's that issue, but I've never really had issues with alternate row shading related to the printer. How odd.

[June7]

Odd and annoying. I gave up trying to resolve. Nobody seems to really care about the shading either way.

Seems all my worst printing issues have been with HP printers. Another thing an older device did was print text as bold italics in some bound controls in report header but the Konica did not. Weird thing about that was the report uses the same font throughout. Very odd, glad that printer is gone.

And when we upgraded to Windows 7, Office 2010 and new printer drivers my code to designate destination printer tray no longer works. Really bummed out on that.