How to place text vertically (rotated) on your report

With a standard Ax installation and with the standard available report control properties, it's not possible to place text vertically (rotated 90 degrees) on a report. (or am I wrong? Let me know in the comments! I'll rename this post to 'An alternative methode to place text vertically on a report' ...)

Now you can have an add-on for Ax that does this for you. Or you may use a separate report generator all together. Or you can use the following solution, using tools available in standard Ax, but with some help of Microsoft technology.

What we gonna do is create a graphics object in memory, write some text, rotate it and then use it as a source for an image control in Ax. Sounds complicated? Maybe. But it's really not that difficult.

Let's assume you have a report in Ax, based on table InventTable. Your report is showing some item information, and we want the itemid as barcode on it as well.

I've put all the code together in one display method. Not best practice, but easier for me now.
Here goes:

Display container ShowBarcode()
{
System.Drawing.Bitmap   BarcodeBitmap;
System.Drawing.Graphics BarcodeGraphics;

int     dx=200;
int     dy=200;

str     barcodetxt;
Image   BarcodeImage;

System.Drawing.Pen                TxtPen;
System.Drawing.Brush              TxtBrush;

System.Drawing.Brush              DrawBrush;

System.Drawing.StringFormat       StringFormat;
System.Drawing.StringAlignment    StringAlignment;

System.Drawing.Font BarcodeFont = new System.Drawing.Font('BC C128 Narrow',36,System.Drawing.FontStyle::Regular);

Int64             BarcodeBitmapPtr;
BarcodeCode128    MyBarcode = BarcodeCode128::construct();
;

BarcodeImage = new Image();

BarcodeBitmap = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(dx,dy);
BarcodeGraphics = System.Drawing.Graphics::FromImage(BarcodeBitmap);

barcodetxt=InventTable.ItemId;
MyBarCode.string(true,barcodetxt);
MyBarCode.encode();
barcodetxt=MyBarCode.barcodeStr();

// clear canvas
DrawBrush = System.Drawing.Brushes::get_White();
BarcodeGraphics.FillRectangle(DrawBrush,0,0,any2int(dx),any2int(dy));

// set barcode text
TxtBrush = System.Drawing.Brushes::get_Black();
TxtPen = new System.Drawing.Pen(TxtBrush);

// set text alignment
StringFormat = new System.Drawing.StringFormat();
StringAlignment = System.Drawing.StringAlignment::Center;
StringFormat.set_Alignment(StringAlignment);
StringFormat.set_LineAlignment(StringAlignment);

// init rotation
BarcodeGraphics.TranslateTransform(any2int(dx),0);
BarcodeGraphics.RotateTransform(90);

// draw text
BarcodeGraphics.DrawString(barcodetxt, BarcodeFont,TxtBrush, any2int(dx/2) , any2int(dy/2),StringFormat);

// transfer image to Ax
BarcodeBitmapPtr=BarcodeBitmap.GetHbitmap();
BarcodeImage.importBitmap(BarcodeBitmapPtr);

return BarcodeImage.getData();
}

Now make sure you have a report control, type bitmap. Set the newly created display method in the properties.


Tip: Watch out with the ResizeBitmap property. When an incorrect image ratio is used, they will reduce the readibility by scanners.
If we run our report, the result will look like this (based on demo data company):

If we would put the text in plain font, we would get something like this:
(leaving out the barcode encoding and using font Arial)

Like I said: If you know a better/easier way to rotate some text in reports, let me know in the comments!