A customer recently asked me how to use the vertical alignment formula functions in Crystal reports. He had found them on-line and was surprised that there were such functions available. So was I. But then I typed the following functions into a formula:
crTopAligned
crCenteredVertically
crBottomAligned
Sure enough, all three of them turned blue and were recognized by Crystal Reports as valid functions. But after the initial excitement I realized that having a function does no good unless there is a formatting property where the function can be used. For instance the function CrRed can be used in any color condition formula, and the function crCenteredHorizontally can be used in the condition formula for horizontal alignment. But there is no vertical alignment formatting property in Crystal Reports. So after some more on-line research we figured that there must have been a plan to add vertical alignment options to Crystal. These function constants were added for them. But then the property never made it into the release and so the functions were orphaned.
And since SAP isn’t planning any major enhancements for standalone CR, I doubt that these functions will find a home any time soon.
(For examples of my most popular formulas, please visit the FORMULAS page on my website.)