How do you create a top margin when printing a PrintAdvancedDataGrid

Question

My datagrid prints starting at the very top of the page. I can't figure out how to move the datagrid down. I don't see anything in FlexPrintJob or PrintAdvancedDataGrid that will do this. Do I have to create a blank object to add to the top of my FlexPrintJob object?

Any help or a link that will help.

Thanks,

John

Answer 1

After trying a lot of examples form adobe and others that did not work at all for me, I figured out that I had to put the datagrid in a vBox where I could put a blank header above the datagrid. As all of the examples showed, this was best done with a vBox component.

Below is a working example of what I came up with, which is a bit different than the examples I found. In the vBox component you can do a lot of things to enhance the print job. In my case I added a title and date.

Hope this helps someone out there,

John

---

I am tusing a generic function to print any AdvancedDataGrid I might have in my application...

public function printAdvancedDataGridContents(advDG:AdvancedDataGrid, xmlListCollection:XMLListCollection, headerText:String):void
    {
        const printJob:FlexPrintJob = new FlexPrintJob();               
        if ( printJob.start() ) {
            //create an instance of the FormPrintView_ADG component containing the datagrid
            var thePrintView:FormPrintView_ADG = new FormPrintView_ADG();
            //add the component to my application
            FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.addChild(thePrintView);
            //load the datagrid
            thePrintView.printDataGrid.dataProvider = xmlListCollection.copy();
            //format the datagrid
            thePrintView.printDataGrid.width = printJob.pageWidth-45; //set a left margin for the dg in a right justiified vBox
            thePrintView.printDataGrid.height = printJob.pageHeight-73; //page adjusted for header title and date
            thePrintView.printDataGrid.setStyle("fontSize", 8);
            thePrintView.printDataGrid.columns = advDG.columns;
            thePrintView.printDataGrid.setStyle("fontFamily", 'Times');
            thePrintView.printDataGrid.setStyle("color", 000000);
            //set the header text
            thePrintView.headerText.height = 45;
            thePrintView.headerText.width = printJob.pageWidth-20;
            thePrintView.headerText.text = "\r"+headerText;
            //add the first page to the print job
            printJob.addObject(thePrintView, FlexPrintJobScaleType.NONE);
            while (thePrintView.printDataGrid.validNextPage) {
                // Move the next page of data to the top of the PrintDataGrid and add it to the printjob
                thePrintView.printDataGrid.nextPage();
                printJob.addObject(thePrintView, FlexPrintJobScaleType.NONE);                       
            }
            //print it and remove the component from my application
            printJob.send();
            FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.removeChild(thePrintView);                  
        }
    }

---

Here is the vBox component I am using...

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<mx:VBox xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
    horizontalAlign="right"
    creationComplete="init();">

    <mx:Script>
    <![CDATA[
        [Bindable] private var date:String;

        private function init():void{
            date = new Date().toString();
            date = df.format(date);
        }
    ]]>
    </mx:Script>

    <mx:DateFormatter id="df" formatString="EEEE, MMMM D, YYYY"/>
    <!-- this header can contain a title or be left blank to create a top margin -->
    <mx:TextArea id="headerText"  borderThickness="0" color="#000000" fontWeight="bold"
                textAlign="center" textDecoration="none"/>
    <!-- date label. set visible to false in the calling function if not needed -->
    <mx:Label color="#000000" fontSize="8" fontStyle="normal" fontWeight="normal" text="{date}"/>
    <!-- the data grid -->
    <mx:PrintAdvancedDataGrid id="printDataGrid"/>  
</mx:VBox>