Locking SSRS fields in place

Question

We are developing a complex structured report, this report has lots of fields and these fields get populated sometime. when these fields are not populated field placement changes for few fields around that empty field.

Is there a way to lock in a field at a particular place.

I extract report in PDF.

Answer 1

I think you are fighting a loosing battle if you are trying to get pixel-perfect rendering, especially since it uses different rendering engines for different output types (e.g. pdf vs html).

Answer 2

You can retain your layout (somewhat) by using rectangles to group or isolate your report items.

I am currently doing this for an executive summary report which contains five table items, two charts and several textboxes. By grouping the objects using rectangles I manage to always have the same layout.

Answer 3

Just make sure that all of your elements have can grow can shrink off. This is usually what causes the rendering to look funky. Some text box will grow and make everything look out of place.