Crystal Report Question

[chewy]

I may be needing to use Crystal Reports soon and was wondering if anyone uses it or could point me to a place where I could get some info about it. Maybe a tutorial or something like that. I have it and installed it, but am not sure how to implement it. It doesnt seem to be a stand alone product or is it? Or does it just ingegrate into other products to use it in them?

Could anyone shed some light on this?

 

[Hayley Baxter]

Hi Chewy

Don't know much about them but I know about this link if it helps.

www.vbexplorer.com

Hayley

 

[chewy]

thanks! Anyone else have any more info?

 

[mission2java_78]

We have crystal reports 9.0.

The developers editions (about 600 bucks).

Crystal reports is basically a 3rd party reporting tool allowing you to base reports on any other data source such as ODBC, SQL Server, OLE, and even Java and JavaBeans.

It is a fairly large and upscale reporting tool...probably the best, and well documented and supported tools out their in the market. The nice thing about version 9 (the newest version) is rather than basing a report on a table you can enter dynamic SQL for any data source. 9.0 is A LOT faster than all previous versions..in fact a report that once could take upto 8 minutes to load now can load under 2 minutes, and this is because of the CRE (Crystal Report Engine).

However, it isnt something that is THAT simple..you have to take the time to learn it...its like learning another application but not as much.

BTW you can export to any format INCLUDING and get this..this is for that other thread we made about the EXCEL object model..get this IN PREDEFINED SET EXCEL FORMAT . So all the templates and predefined data you have in say an access report, in crystal reports term, sends all this data to excel and sets all the necessary adjustments, design etc into excel. So you get a lot better results. You can also send to Word, PDF, HTML, and text.

Jon

 

[chewy]

so is this a standalone application? Or do I need to run it through VB or something? And if so what is it generally ran through?

 

[mission2java_78]

No,

You create the crystal reports as executables basically..and package them with your vb application. Your end users need to have the correct .dll's and .ocx's to run the reports. But that shouldnt be a worry since the packaging wizard includes them with your client application.

Version 8.5 and under have a free download for end users called "CR Viewer" this is basically used to allow them to view the reports. Version 9 does not have the viewer anymore, instead for web based apps you have an e-profiler (too much info to go into, youll need to research). Once you've created the report you can open it from another application.

Jon

 

[chewy]

it's strange because I installed 8.5 and all I saw was a folder of Examples which had VB source code in it. Maybe I just didn't look in the right place.

 

[mission2java_78]

it's strange because I installed 8.5 and all I saw was a folder of Examples which had VB source code in it. Maybe I just didn't look in the right place.

What package do you have?

I have a good tutorial for you.

Give me some time

Jon

 

[mission2java_78]

http://www.shiningstar.net/tutorials/crystalreports/crystalreportstutorial.htm

you can open the report in a client application like vb and you can also open it in crystal reports.

Jon

 

[chewy]

not sure what "package" I have. I have it at home and I am at work. Thanks for the tut

 

[Pat Hartman]

Crystal also comes with an ActiveX control that you can place on an Access form that allows you to open a Crystal report from your Access db.

 

[mission2java_78]

This goes for VB as well chewy.

Jon

 

[chewy]

i didnt have the full version installed. I had basically samples. Now I have the full version and it makes it much simpler. Thanks!

 

[Kevin_S]

ChickeyD -

You may not get a reply on this... this thread is over a year old!!!

You can check the post dates on the left hand side of a post above the users name...

HTH,
Kev