Trouble with formattedWidth revisited

[Cubist at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/6/06 3:54:09 PM, Graham Samuel <livfoss at mac.com> writes:
>Recently, I wrote:
>> I'm interested in truncating a character string to a certain number 
>> of pixels. As part of this process, I put the string into field and 
>> check the field's formattedWidth.  My script says
>>   put the formattedWidth of field "myField" into myTemp
>> I can verify that the string is really there and is not null.
>> The RR docs says:
>>> If you specify a field, the formattedWidth reports the width  
>>> required by the field's text.
>> Well, for me sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. When it  
>> doesn't, the formattedWidth reports zero. ...
>Sarah Reichelt (thank, Sarah) suggested my problems would go away if  
>I made sure the field had its 'dontWrap' property set to true. Well,  
>I've done this, and I've made sure there is a genuine font set  
>(Lucida Grande) and a genuine text size (10 point), and when I run my 
>handler it returns zero. ...
>It's got to be something I'm doing wrong, but I simply can't work out 
>what it is.
>
>Any suggestions out there?
   I've never played with formattedWidth, myself, but one semi-obvious 
possibility leaps to mind. Since you're interested in how many characters can fit 
into whatever number of pixels, why not try something in this neighborhood:

put the formattedWidth of char 1 to 15 of field "myField" into myTemp

   Hope this helps...