Crystal Reports 10: The Complete Reference
Overview
When you save a Crystal Report, your report file is saved on disk with an .RPT extension. This Crystal Reports native format can be used only with another copy of Crystal Reports, with Crystal Enterprise, with a web-based application using a native Crystal Reports programming interface (discussed in Part II of the book), or with a customized Windows application (discussed in Part III of the book). Since everyone who might ever need to view a report probably won t have their own copy of Crystal Reports, there are many ways to export a report to a different file format for use with such products as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Acrobat Reader, and others. You can also export your reports in HTML format for viewing in a web browser. Furthermore, you can attach these differently formatted files to e-mail messages or place them in a Lotus Domino database or a Microsoft Exchange public folder.
Although exporting is a handy way of distributing reports to non “Crystal Reports viewers , your exported reports are static, meaning they contain a picture of the database as it existed when the report was exported. As soon as the source database changes (perhaps the second after the report was exported), the report becomes outdated . If your viewers have their own copies of Crystal Reports, they can solve this problem by opening and refreshing the report, but this also means that they can change the report. This solution also assumes that your viewers know enough about Crystal Reports to be able to open and refresh a report.
If your viewers do not have their own copies of Crystal Reports and do need real-time data reporting, you may want to consider implementing Crystal Enterprise to allow real- time running of reports in a web browser (see Part II of this book for more information). Or, you may develop a custom Windows or Java application to integrate the report for viewing by your target audience (see Part III of this book for more information).
| Note | Earlier versions of Crystal Reports allowed creation of compiled reports ”stand-alone Windows programs that allowed reports to be run in real time without a copy of Crystal Reports. However, this feature has not been supported with more recent Crystal Reports versions. Crystal Reports 10 does not retain this feature either. |
The examples in this chapter are based on a report, shown in Figure 15-1, containing both text and a chart placed beside the text with the Underlay feature. In addition, some of the text contains special formatting, such as drop shadows. The report also contains additional graphical elements, such as line and box drawing. The report also contains hyperlinks to external web site and e-mail addresses.