How do I solve column width problems in a SSRS Tablix?

Question

I'm creating a simple report from Microsoft Dynamics CRM. When I pull in the following dataset:

SELECT FQD.productidname
     , FQD.NEW_PRICEBREAKS
     , FQD.NEW_WEEKSARO
     , ltrim(rtrim(FP.NEW_PRODUCTNAME)) AS NewProductDesc
     , FQD.productdescription
     , FQD.quoteid
     , FQD.quantity
     , FQD.productiddsc
     , FQD.baseamount
     , FQD.lineitemnumber
     , FQD.priceperunit
     , FQD.extendedamount
     , ISNULL(FP.productnumber, '') AS productnumber
     , ISNULL(FQD.uomidname, '-') AS Unit
     , FQD.tax AS Tax
     , FQD.volumediscountamount * FQD.quantity AS Discount
     , FQD.manualdiscountamount AS MDiscount
     , FQD.quotedetailid
     , FQD.crm_moneyformatstring
     , FQD.NEW_PRICEPERUNIT
     , FQD.NEW_PRICEPERUNIT_BASE
FROM   FilteredQuoteDetail FQD
     LEFT OUTER JOIN
       FilteredProduct FP
     ON FQD.productid = FP.productid
WHERE (FQD.quoteid = @CRM_QuoteId)

The NewProductDesc field is too wide. If I shorted it in design view, it still comes out too wide in the presentation. I think the field is coming out that wide because the database field probably has a bunch of blank spaces at the end of every description. I could not find a way to force that field in the Tablix not to grow horizontally, so I attempted to remedy it in the dataset by replacing the NewProductDesc line with:

ltrim(rtrim(FP.NEW_PRODUCTNAME)) AS NewProductDesc

However, that has no effect either.

Can anyone suggest why this behavior is occuring? Can anyone tell me how I can force the field not to grow horizontally?

Answer 1

I think in your case it is better to set width staticly e.g: 1.25in

But if you want to use percentage and Trim() didn't work check SPACE() and see which number do you get? -this method gives you count of spaces in the string.-

If you found too many space in the report then Trim it in your Database Query