Change orientation of "Vertical Property" in TextBox?

[Ingeneeus]

I've seen this addressed in a few older threads, but no satisfactory answers. I'm hoping there's a solution that will work.

I'll try to be as concise as I can without choking you on meaningless details.

I need a Report to print out what amounts to cataloging labels on an Avery Sheet. The information for the labels comes from a Query which returns the name of the item (from a field named "ProductName") and an inventory number (from a field named "CatalogNumber"). The Query draws from a Table called OrderDetails. I will need to print one label for each item in a given "order."

I'm OK to this point. I've created a Report which allows me to print these two fields on the label sheet in question. Here's where it gets sticky. I have very rigid specifications as to how the labels are formatted. The "CatalogNumber" needs to be printed vertically, while the "ProductName" needs to be horizontal.

After much research, I chanced upon the Vertical Property for TextBoxes. I thought this would solve my problem, but naturally it's not that easy. The Vertical Property rotates the text to the right (read top-to-bottom); I need the text rotated to the left (read bottom-to-top). See attached image.

I've been searching the threads all morning and can't find a solution. There's got to be a way to do this. Several of the responders to earlier incarnations of this question want to send me to Stephan Lebans' website to download some code-thingie he developed for rotating text. This has done me precious little good, as I can't make heads or tails of how I'm supposed to incorporate his solution. Seriously -- his stuff appears to be quite a bit above my pay-grade

Somebody here suggested that I try an "upside down" font, which seemed like a really clever idea, but it's a no-go -- It seems that setting the "Vertical" Property to Yes makes the TextBox ignore the font.

I could really use a workable solution. Or a work-around that actually works.

I'm currently using Access 2003 with SP3.
(We're thinking about moving to Access 2010 -- anybody know if Microsoft has corrected this strange oversight in that version?)

 

[hmross]

I posted this question and I am using Access 2010. Your problem is my problem, your level is my level. I have not found a solution. I have a report that is supposed to replicate an older printed version. The new report prints the headings incorrectly. No solution; although the reverse font seemed like a good one. I didn't come up with.:banghead:

 

[spikepl]

I am not aware of any simple way of doing it in Access (But I am not aware of many things ...)

I'd be surprised if you couldn't do this in Word. Printing address labels in Word is a standard thing .. merging them with Access data shouldn't be to complicated either... and the whole lot could likely be triggered from Access, if need be.

 

[Ingeneeus]

[FONT=&quot]
Thanks for the quick responses.
I appreciate the sympathetic post, hmross.

spikepl, I'm really hoping to be able to do this without exporting to either Word or Excel (as has also been suggested in other threads).
My reasons are twofold, and are both derived from the fact that I don't really know what I'm doing here :
#1) It took me a lot of trial and error to get a Report set up to print out on the labels I need to use. I even borrowed a neat little trick where I can dictate which label "position" to start printing on (handy for partial sheets)
#2) Related to #1, I barely know the basics of how to export a report programatically, let alone how to get it to fill the "correct" sections of a Word or Excel document.

It appears that the 90° / 270° rotation issue may not have been addressed in Access 2010 as I had hoped. I found a link to another Lebans download on another thread. This one is supposed to be for an ActiveX control which can be used as a (bound) TextBox. It sounds like it might have potential, but -- again -- it's a bit above my level of comprehension and I really can't afford to screw something up.

Here's the link
It includes a .CAB file, something called an .LST file, and a setup.exe.

Sadly, what it does not appear to include are simple, clear instructions on a) exactly what is being installed and b) how I go about using it to hurdle this roadblock.

Anybody care to offer any pointers?

[/FONT]

 

[Isskint]

OK, the zip file i think you want to use is RotateLabelocx.zip

open the zip folder and extract RotateLabelVer2.ocx to the relevant office library folder eg C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11.

Now open the report in design view.

go Tools>>ActiveX Controls and click on the Register button. A standard Windows File Dialog window appears. Browse to whatever folder you have downloaded the RotateLabel.ocx file to eg C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11. Select the file then click on the Open button. Close the ActiveX Controls list box.

Now go to the normal toolbox and click on the More Controls button. Find RotateLabel and click it, then place it on your report. Set the control source and then play with the HAlignment , VAlignment and Escapement settings under the Other tab of the controls property box.

There is a help file that comes with zip file anyway.

 

[Ingeneeus]

Thanks, Isskint -- I really appreciate the walk-thru.
I think I'm almost there. I followed your directions, but am getting a windows message that tells me "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\RotateLabelVer2.ocx was unable to add/remove itself to/from your system. Install/Remove the control using a separate setup utility."
I think I may need to change a setting or something.

It seems like the more I learn, the less I know . . .

UPDATE
OK, I've finally got this working. Someone more well versed in Access than I (and I assure you, that's a pretty big pool) figured out the reason that the control wouldn't install was that I was running Access 2003/SP3, while the control was created in Access '97. Evidently, these don't talk to each other very well.
Long story short, there is some kind of compatibility mode that Access 2003 can be run in which allows you to register the ActiveX control, as outlined above.
Thanks again for your assistance!

 

[Ingeneeus]

Hi again, all.
In my initial post, I had kind of a throwaway question about whether Access 2010 solved this problem. At the time, we were thinking about moving all of our workstations to 2010.
As I type, we have 3 shiny new copies of 2010 sitting in a cabinet in the office. They're sitting in the cabinet rather than running on our machines because we're as of yet unsure how the change to 2010 will affect a Very Important Application we run.
So, while we ponder that, I will put the following questions out there:
#1: Will Access 2010 let me rotate a Text Box to the left instead of to the right (270° instead of 90°), as described above.
#1a: If it will, does any body here know how to do so?
#2: If it won't, does anyone know if the Lebans' ActiveX control referenced above will even function (register) in Access 2010?

As I noted in my Update post back in November, the Lebans' control didn't play at all nicely with my Access 2003/SP3 because of its age; we had to use some kind of compatibility mode (not my term, or my doing) to make it work, and that solution seemed to make the Very Important Application kind of . . . balky on my workstation; it works, but with a bit of a cost. I have some strong concerns that Access 2010 might not allow the same workaround, and we really need to not lose the rotated TextBox for the report I described above.

Tell me something I wanna hear . . .