Question

I am trying to format (bold or italics) only a portion of a textbox or Formula object (IFieldObject) in Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2008.

I know how to make the entire field bold, but I want only a portion.

For example:

…blah blah blah May 12, 2009 blah blah blah…

Is this possible? I’m thinking there must be some sort of markup, but can’t find any reference
to it.

Answer 1

You can do this by inserting HTML markup in the field (using a formula) and then displaying the new formula as a HTML field.

e.g.
Here’s a basic Syntax formula that takes a field and adds the bold tag around the text before the colon.

dim sTmp as string 
dim sLeft as string 
dim sRight as string 
dim sAll as string 

sTmp = {yourtable.yourfield}

sLeft = (split(sTmp,":"))(1)
sRight = (split(sTmp,":"))(2)

sAll = "<b>"+sLeft+":</b>"+sRight
formula = sAll

If you place this new formula into the report and then …

• Right Click the field and choose “Format Field”
• Change Text Interpretation to HTML Text
• Click ‘OK’

There are Gotchas here. The original text is not HTML encoded, and I’m sure my example code does a simple one-line thing in about ten lines. Also, if your field has no colons in it, you’ll force an error. However, it should give you the right idea.