Programmatically Centering a Word Document Table in LabVIEW

This article will document the necessary steps to centre a table in a Word Document using LabVIEW™.

Before proceeding, a compatible version of the Report Generation Toolkit must be installed to use with LabVIEW. For a detailed list of version compatibility, refer to Report Generation Toolkit and Microsoft Office and LabVIEW Compatibility.

The Word Set Table Dimensions VI can be used to centre the Word document table in two ways:

1. By stretching the table to fit the width of the page.
2. By specifying the left indentation of the table with respect to the page.

 

Method 1: Stretching the Table

This is the simplest method since LabVIEW automatically handles the resizing and repositioning of the table.

• Wire a True Constant to the Fit to Page Width? (F) input, as shown below.
  • This will force the columns in the table to resize so that they expand across the entirety of the Word document.
  • If the Word document has margins, the table will not enter the margins.

Note: This image is a LabVIEW snippet, which includes LabVIEW code that you can reuse in your project. To use a snippet, right-click the image, save it to your computer, and drag the file onto your LabVIEW diagram.
 

Method 2: Specifying a Left Indentation

This method is more involved, but offers greater flexibility and control over the table's format.

• Create a Constant on the Measurement System input to define whether the VI will use inches (in) or centimetres (cm) for repositioning.
• Define the width of each of the table's columns by wiring a Numeric Array to the Table Column Widths input.
  • If a column width is not defined, then LabVIEW will use the default width.
• Wire a Constant to the Left Indent (0) input.
  • This specifies the distance between the left Word document margin and the left edge of the table.

The image below indicates that the table consists of five columns, each measuring 2 cm in width. The Word document measures 21 cm in width (for a standard A4 sheet) and has a 2.54 cm left margin by default. Therefore, it can be calculated that a 2.96 cm left indentation is required to centre the table.


Note: This image is a LabVIEW snippet, which includes LabVIEW code that you can reuse in your project. To use a snippet, right-click the image, save it to your computer, and drag the file onto your LabVIEW diagram.