SSRS Report Builder: Prevent tablix moving horizontally?

Question

Imagine the below groups of hyphens are tablix's on my report

1------- 2---
3------------
4---

1,2 & 3 grow by their row groups. But 4 grows by its column groups so when it is rendered, it is long as 3.

In my experience, Report Builder seems to push things along sideways in this type of layout. As expected, it is happening in my current situation which makes the rendered report look like this:

1-------      2---
3------------
4------------

It's like 2 is somehow aligned to 4, i.e. as 4 grows, 2 moves.

Any idea's what this is and how to stop it?

Answer 1

The way to control these rendering issues is with Rectangles.

In your example, I would wrap Tablix 1 and Tablix 2 in a Rectangle.

This affects report rendering, as the the report will render the objects within the Rectangle first relative to each other, then render and place other objects relative to the Rectangle, i.e. ignoring the objects within the Rectangle and treating them as one whole.

Otherwise, SSRS will make it's best guess at preserving the layout of all objects relative to each other, which is not what is required in your case.

When you move the Tablixes into the Rectangle just make sure the Parent property changes from Body to the name of your Rectangle and this should solve the issue.