Horizontal alignment of subreport data

[Kevin]

We have defined a report by three subreports placed side-
by-side in the master report. The first report contains
multiple fields displayed one underneath the other,
functioning as a "header" for the detail records in the
other two reports. Their Detail sections are one row high
but contain multiple records for each record of the first
report:

Rpt1Rec1Field1 Rpt2Rec1Fld1 ...Fld2 Rpt3Rec1Fld1
Rpt1Rec1Field2 Rpt2Rec2Fld1 ...Fld2 Rpt3Rec2Fld1
... Rpt2Rec3Fld1 ...Fld2 Rpt3Rec3Fld1
RptnRec1Fieldn
----------------------------------------------------------
Rpt1Rec2Field1
... <etc.

The problem is that we would like text in each row to be
aligned. Currently the field-to-field spacing of the
first report does not match the row-to-row spacing of the
other subreports. I know that experimenting graphically
should give us acceptable results, but I'd like to know
how I can define the spacing unambiguously.

Thanks for any assistance.