Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Part III: More-Advanced Access Techniques

730

FIGURE 20.24

Vertical lines in rptVerticalLines help segregate data.

The syntax of the Line method is as follows:

object.Line (X1, Y1) - (X2, Y2)

The Line method requires four arguments. These arguments (X1, X2, Y1, and Y2) specify the top

and bottom (or left and right, depending on your perspective) coordinates of the line. Notice that

all calculated measurements on a report must be specified in twips (there are 1,440 twips per

inch). In this case, X1 and X2 are the same value and I’m forcing the line to start at the very top of

the Detail section ( 0 ) and to extend downward for 10,000 twips.

You might wonder why I’m using 10,000 as the Y2 coordinate for the end of the line. Access will

automatically “clip” the line to the height of the Detail section. Because the line control doesn’t

contain data, Access won’t expand the Detail section to accommodate the line you’ve drawn in

code. Instead, Access draws as much of the 10,000-twip line as needed to fill the Detail section,

and then it stops. The maximum value for Y2 is 32,767.

The same procedure could be used to draw horizontal lines for each section on the report. In the

report example (rptVerticalLines) in the database accompanying this chapter (Chapter20.

accdb), I’ve chosen to add line controls to the report instead. Using the Line control when the

height of the report section is fixed (for example, in the group header and footer) is simply faster

than drawing the line for each of these sections.