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Right Justify Input Text

Recently, I was asked how to right-justify text in user-editable fields. It seemed like a simple enough requirement, as most number-based fields are right-justified so that you can perform quick calculations in your head, or just have them look pretty if you're not so good at math.

In any case, there are two different ways to accomplish this in Apex, depending on what type of object you are trying to modify.

For a Page Item, you may be tempted to change the Horizontal/Vertical alignment option under the Elements section. Close, but that won't quite do the trick, as that parameter controls ALL of the HTML for a specific item, not the Form component.

In the same Element, section, you will need to enter the following for the HTML Form Element Attributes: style="text-align:right;"


If you are working with a Tabular Form, there aren't any page items which to change. Thus, you have to modify the Column Attributes for the text item that you want to be right-justified.

Edit your Tabular Form, click on Report Attributes, and then click on the corresponding Edit Column link. Scroll down to the Tabular Form Element section, and for the Element Attributes, enter: style="text-align:right;"


When you run your page, the results should look something like this:

You can also substitute "center" for "right" in order to center your input text.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Scott,

Nice entry. I need to "play" a lot with my text fields' alignment, so I defined my own application substitution strings: #LEFT#, #RIGHT# and #CENTER#, with the corresponding style attribute. It's saving a lot of time, but mainly annoying syntax errors.

I understand you are busy writing a new book about APEX (with John Scott) so keep us intrigue and anticipating by throwing an interesting entry in your Blog, every once in a while. I promise – will still buy the book :)

Thanks,
Arie.
Anonymous said…
Hi Scott,

If you have a sum in the tabular form how do you right align that?
Scott said…
If you have a sum in the tabular form how do you right align that?

Pete you should be able to use the standard Apex align select lists for that.

Thanks,

- Scott -
Anonymous said…
Well, I had a similar issue, except that in my report, I had monetary values. So I resorted to to_char with the numeric format mask e.g. using to_char(value,'990.99'). and also having the fields right aligned.
The Joshua Tree said…
Not sure if this thread is still active/checked but I'm running into an issue and thought I'd post a question here. Environment is APEX 3.0.0.00.20 and the issue is regarding header alignment in reports. I'm using one of the Vertical Report templates and have a "notes" field which takes up a few rows. The header "Notes" is aligned to the right and bottom. I've been unable to work around it and I'm out of ideas. I've vertical-align syntax in the heading field on the Report Attributes page as well as adding styles and html tags within the field properties itself. I've also tinkered with the report template but I may not be in the right place since I am unable to get any changes to reflect in the active report. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

--Josh
Anonymous said…
Thank you Scott - This helped me out on a runfast pjct I am on. Regards,

~Bill
Anonymous said…
Just want to thank you. I needed to align the decimal points in a funding stmt. and using style="" worked like a charm!

Phyllis

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