Crystal Reports - Font Too Small On Screen

[jjwild]

When sending a report to the screen using Crystal Reports' CRViewer control for VB, some fonts show smaller on the screen than they do when printed. Different fonts work differently in this way and, within a font, different sizes work differently.

This shrinkage occurs on the screen even when the printer is set to no printer, so I don't think it is just a printer driver issue.

This is worse in Win2K than Win98. In Win2K, Trebuchet MS font size 10 (the one we had standardized on) is about 25% smaller on the screen than it should be. It is functionally illegible.

We are running Crystal Reports 8.0 under VB6.

Any ideas on what could be causing this?

Is anyone NOT having problems with this?

 

[MarkSweetland]

We use Crystal 8.5 with VB6 and have not run into this. Are you using the RDC or the OCX with rpt files?



Mark

 

[jjwild]

We are using the RDC and running the reports using the CRViewer (Crystal Report viewer) control.

 

[MarkSweetland]

Your reports might have been created with 7.0 Text Compatibility' option selected. By default this option is selected when you use Crystal Reports version 8 for the first time.

When this option is selected, CR 8 automatically reduces the font size for text objects in version 7 reports. This offsets the font size increase (and possible truncation) that might have otherwise resulted from the new text object rendering process in CR 8.


Just a guess...

Mark

 

[jjwild]

It looks like the 7.0 option would lower the actual font size assigned to the text box. We knew that wasn't the case. In case just having that option checked made a difference, I found it and unchecked it (it was checked). Unfortunately, that did not handle our problem.

Thanks for the idea. Each thing we try that does not handle it gets us that much closer to isolating what it is.

 

[jjwild]

Mark-

I have spent much time with Crystal Reports help staff on this. They have created a bug report as they were able to duplicate it with CR 9.

I would like to know for sure that you are not having this problem, as that would be important data.

I calculate the shrinkage occuring by measuring how
much of a text box is filled up on on the screen versus on the printer.

The following are approximate shrinkages that I get:
> On Win 2K, Trebuchet MS font size 10 is 25% smaller when
displayed in the RDC than when it is printed.
> On Win 2K, Trebuchet MS font size 9 is 35% smaller when
displayed in the RDC than when it is printed.
> On Win 2K and on Win 98, Times New Roman is about 10%
smaller.
> On Win 2K and on Win 98, Arial is about 13% smaller.

Questions:
> Are you running under the CRViewer?
> If so, can you measure the shrinkage of any of the above,
CRViewer versus printer? If you are on Win 2K, I would
prefer measurement of Trebuchet MS, if possible.

Much appreciated.

If anyone else has data on this, I'd love to hear it. Please let me know the versions of CR, VB and Windows.

Our reports will be used real time during financial negotiations and now, on the client's platform, they have all become unreadable (35% is alot).

 

[MarkSweetland]

I do see a differences between the RDC, Viewer, and the actual printed copy. To test, I created a blank report in the RDC and added two text objects. I typed the text "10 point Trebuchet MS" in one and "9 point Trebuchet MS" in the other. I set the font and sizes to Trebuchet 10 and 9 respectively. I also inserted a Line object, set the color to red and in the RDC, set the line vertically at the end of the last character in the text object. I inserted another line, set the color to black, and with trial and error (running the report, stopping, and manually moving the Black line) positioned it at the end of the text as viewed in the CRViewer (which tells me is not truly WYSIWYG).

When both lines were set, I printed the report on our LaserJet. The Lines were inside, overwriting both text objects. And, I believe confirms your shrinkage in the RDC theory, or expansion on the print execution, which ever you prefer. I measured with a non technical device (wooden ruler) and as far as my feeble eyes could tell, the difference constituted a 30% expansion.

10-point 9-point
End of Text
Design EOT: 18/16" 15/16"
Viewer EOT: 1" 11/16"
Printed EOT: 22/16" 19/16"


I did test other fonts in the same manner and found that the Verdana font seems to be the closest in all three modes (designer, viewer, and print). Which is good since that's what I use the most. Arial did have some diferences, but not enough that it would affect anything I use.


I only have Win2K to test with and use VB 6.0 and CR 8.5 RDC.








Mark

 

[jjwild]

Mark-

Thank you very much. Houston, we have some reports to adjust.

The shrinkages you are seeing are the same order of magnitude as what we saw. I believe the printed version is correct; in native Crystal Reports, the text is the same size in Design mode, Preview mode and sent to the printer and that size matches the print outs from VB.

We will check out Verdana. This is the second time we have had to abandon a font. We were using Times New Roman, I believe, until we noticed that a capital T and a capital I were indistinguishable from each other in font size 9. Important when dealing with part numbers.

Thanks again.

John

 

[fatsheldon]

I am having a very similar problem with the web viewer and Times New Roman text. If you change the zoom level inside the viewer it actually changes how far the text "stretches." At 100% or greater the text on a few of the larger boxes stretches right out of their boxes and even off the page. In the Crystal Reports previewer however, there is no stretching at any zoom level.

When changed to Veranda there was little or no stretching.

I'm using Crystal 8.5...