Crystal Reports 10 - Export to TEXT with Delimited Space Format

Question

Hello,
I am new to Crystal reports, sorry if this is a really basic question.  I am trying to create a report which I can export to a TXT file.  The TXT file format will be delimted space (size 500 characters).  I would like to know how I can use Crystal reports to fix the size of the fields.
For example field 1 is 22 characters, field 2 starts directly after field 1 and is 9 characters (9 spaces), field 3 is then 7 characters so an example of the output I need is:
1111111111111111111111         2222222
I will need to use a mixture of TEXT fields and database fields to create the report.  Thefore is it possible to specify the length of a text file i.e. TEXT1 = 22?
I am new to Crystal so I hope there is a simple solution without the use of coding
Thanks,
Brett

Answer 1

You will have to force the fields to the length that you are looking for, as Crystal treats strings as variable length strings.  So to force a character field to 20 characters, you'd do something like:
left({db.charfield} + ReplicateString(" ", 20), 20)
For a number, you could use either
ToText({db.numfield}, "0000000000")
or
right(ReplicateString(" ", 10) + ToText({db.numfield}, "0"), 10)
(for a 10 digit integer; change the format string in ToText for other numeric data types)
I suggest that it may be clearer and more accurate to create one formula field with the entire line formatted as needed, then just display that one field on the report.
HTH,
Carl