Controlling the Vertical Positioning of a Heading or Footing

How to:

You can use several vertical positioning techniques to enhance the appearance and readability of a report:

Syntax: How to Add Blank Lines to a Heading or Footing

Use the following syntax options to add blank lines above or below, or within a heading or footing, where:

</n
Is a spot marker that specifies the number of lines to skip. It is best to put the spot marker on the same line as the text in the request. If you place the spot marker </n on a line by itself, it will add that line in addition to the designated number of skipped lines.
" "
Indicates a separate line in the heading or footing, with blank content.

You can use these techniques separately or in combination.

Example: Adding Blank Lines Above and Below a Report Heading

This request creates an HTML report with one blank line between each line of the page heading and two blank lines between the page heading and the actual report. The first blank line is added as an empty text line, The next blank lines are added with the skip-line spot marker. 

TABLE FILE GGSALES
SUM BUDUNITS UNITS BUDDOLLARS DOLLARS
BY CATEGORY
ON TABLE SUBHEAD
"SALES REPORT" 
" "
"**(CONFIDENTIAL)**</1"
"December 2002 </2" 
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM OFF 
ON TABLE SET ONLINE-FMT HTML 
ON TABLE SET HTMLCSS ON
ON TABLE SET STYLESHEET *
TYPE=REPORT, GRID=OFF, TOPMARGIN=0, $
TYPE = TABHEADING, JUSTIFY = CENTER, $
ENDSTYLE
END

The output is:

Syntax: How to Control Vertical Spacing in a Heading or Footing

In a PDF report, you can use the TOPGAP and BOTTOMGAP attributes to control spacing above or below a heading or footing line or the distance between heading or footing text and the grid lines above and below them.

Note: You can use TOPGAP and BOTTOMGAP with multi-line headings. Keep in mind that between heading lines the top and bottom gap will be inserted, making the spacing between lines greater than the spacing at the top and bottom of the heading. 

TYPE=headfoot, {TOPGAP|BOTTOMGAP}=gap, $

where:

headfoot
Is the type of heading or footing. Valid values are TABHEADING, TABFOOTING, HEADING, FOOTING, SUBHEAD, and SUBFOOT.
TOPGAP
Indicates how much space to add above a report component.
BOTTOMGAP
Indicates how much space to add below a report component.
gap
Is the amount of blank space, in the unit of measurement specified by the UNITS parameter (inches, by default).

In the absence of grids, the default value is 0.

In the presence of grids, the default value increases to provide space between the grid and the text.

Example: Adding Blank Space to Separate Heading Text From Grid Lines in a PDF Report

This request generates a PDF report with blank space added above and below the report heading to separate the text from the upper and lower grid lines. The space above is added by the TOPGAP attribute. The space below is added by the BOTTOMGAP attribute. 

TABLE FILE GGSALES
SUM BUDUNITS UNITS BUDDOLLARS DOLLARS
BY CATEGORY
ON TABLE SUBHEAD
"SALES REPORT <+0>December 2001"
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM OFF
ON TABLE SET ONLINE-FMT PDF
ON TABLE SET SQUEEZE ON
ON TABLE SET STYLESHEET *
TYPE = TABHEADING, GRID=ON, JUSTIFY=CENTER, TOPGAP=.25, BOTTOMGAP=.25, $
TYPE = TABHEADING,  FONT='TIMES', SIZE=12, STYLE=BOLD, $
TYPE = TABHEADING, ITEM=2, SIZE=10, STYLE=ITALIC, $
ENDSTYLE
END

The output is:

Example: Adjusting Vertical Spacing Below a Sort Footing

The request generates a PDF report in which the sort footings are bolded for emphasis and space is added below each footing to visually tie the footing text to the preceding data. 

TABLE FILE GGPRODS
PRINT PACKAGE_TYPE AND UNIT_PRICE
WHERE UNIT_PRICE GT 50
BY PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION NOPRINT BY PRODUCT_ID
ON PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION SUBFOOT
"Summary for <PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION"
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM OFF 
ON TABLE SET ONLINE-FMT PDF 
ON TABLE SET SQUEEZE ON
ON TABLE SET STYLESHEET * 
TYPE=SUBFOOT, STYLE=BOLD, BOTTOMGAP=.25, $ 
ENDSTYLE
END

The output is:

Syntax: How to Position a Page Footing at the Bottom of a Page

You can position a page footing at the bottom of a page. By default, a page footing appears two lines below the report data. 

FOOTING [BOTTOM]
  "content ... "
["content ... "]
.
.
.
["content ... "]

where:

FOOTING
Is the required command that identifies the content as a page footing.
BOTTOM
Is an optional command that places the footing at the bottom of the page. If you omit BOTTOM, the page footing appears two lines below the report data. Note: FOOTING BOTTOM is not supported in an HTML report or by the WebFOCUS Viewer.
content
Footing content can include the following elements, between double quotation marks. (If the ending quotation mark is omitted, all subsequent lines of the request are treated as part of the footing.)
text
Is the footing text. You can include multiple lines of text.

The text must start on a line by itself, following the FOOTING command.

Text can be combined with variables and spot markers.

For related information, see Limits for Headings and Footings.

variable
Can be any one or a combination of the following:

Fields (real data source fields, virtual fields created with the DEFINE command in a Master File or report request, calculated values created with the COMPUTE command in a request, system fields such as TABPAGENO). You can qualify data source fields with certain prefix operators. 

Dialogue Manager variables.

Images. You can include images in a heading or footing.

For details, see Including an Element in a Heading or Footing.

spot marker
Enables you to position items, to identify items to be formatted, and to extend code beyond the 80-character line limit of the text editor.

<+0> divides a heading or footing into items for formatting. For details, see Identifying a Report Component in a WebFOCUS StyleSheet.

</n specifies skipped lines. For details, see Controlling the Vertical Positioning of a Heading or Footing.

<-n to position the next character on the line. For details, see Using Spot Markers to Refine Positioning.

<0X continues a heading or footing specification on the next line of the request. For details, see Extending Heading and Footing Code to Multiple Lines in a Report Request.

Note: When a closing spot marker is immediately followed by an opening spot marker (><), a single space text item will be placed between the two spot markers (> <). This must be considered when applying formatting.

Blank lines
If you omit all text, variables, and spot markers, you have a blank heading or footing line (for example, " ") which you can use to skip a line in the heading or footing. (You can also skip a line using a vertical spot marker, such as </1.)

Note: The maximum number of sort headings and sort footings in one request is 33.

Example: Positioning a Page Footing at the Bottom of a Page

This request produces a PDF report in which the page footing appears at the bottom of the page, rather than in its default position, two lines below the report data. 

TABLE FILE GGSALES
PRINT UNITS DOLLARS
BY CATEGORY BY STCD
WHERE TOTAL DOLLARS GE 25000
FOOTING BOTTOM
"PRELIMINARY SALES FIGURES"
ON TABLE SET ONLINE-FMT PDF
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM OFF
END

The following output shows the end of the report, with the footing.