as no replies yet went about testing with Graphics.MeasureString instead and used the width from the measurement divided by the width of the rectangle/column I was inputting to get the number of lines it would overlap by:
Code:
fontheight = gfx.MeasureString(student.Notes, font);
textsize = fontheight.Height;
noLines = fontheight.Width / colWidth;
if (noLines > Convert.ToInt32(noLines))
noLines = Convert.ToInt32(noLines) + 1;
findTopHeight = textsize * noLines;
rect = new XRect(PageMargin, accHeightLoc, colWidth, findTopHeight);
It works ok but I would love to know of any better solutions.