how to create reports in vb6

[marianne]

hello to all !

For awhile I have been programming in ms access since its was easy for me there. but now, I am also studying and learning VB6.

I have made access as my database, and I know some now of creating form in VB6 but I dont know how to create the reports.

Can someone show me how and where to start to create reports. thanks !

 

[DCrake]

Visual Basic is not very good at building reports I'm afraid, however all is not lost. If you want a work around you can create a blank mdb and link your tables to it then create the necessary queries that will underpin the reports and create the reports in Access. This is one of the occasions where you are using more than one Access back end. Then from VB you can run the reports that exist in the mdb directly. You will need to add the Access object library to your references.

David

 

[shadow9449]

hello to all !

For awhile I have been programming in ms access since its was easy for me there. but now, I am also studying and learning VB6.

I have made access as my database, and I know some now of creating form in VB6 but I dont know how to create the reports.

Can someone show me how and where to start to create reports. thanks !

Marianne:

The most common way to create reports in VB6 is to use Crystal Reports. There is a Crystal Reports control that you can put on a form (it's one of those controls that you can't see during runtime) and you can reference the report that way. There are many online tutorials for this. Here's an example:

http://www.vb6.us/tutorials/using-crystal-reports-vb6-tutorial

Good luck

SHADOW

 

[marianne]

thanks DCrack and Shadow9449 for your replies. I will study that.

 

[DCrake]

Crystal Reports is fine if you have a copy of it and it is compatable with the end users version, if they have it. My suggestion was for a self contained solution without the need of third party software.

David

 

[shadow9449]

Crystal Reports is fine if you have a copy of it and it is compatable with the end users version, if they have it. My suggestion was for a self contained solution without the need of third party software.

David

This is true.

It depends on what Marianne's goal is. If she wants to get away from using an Access front end altogether and design databases in VB, then the most common approach is to use Crystal. There are supposed to be advantages to Crystal Reports that Access doesn't have (although in almost 15 years of using Access there is almost nothing I couldn't do with a report that I needed to). There are reasons people would want to get away from an Access-based solution and there are plenty of reasons to stick to Access. It really depends on what Marriane wants to accomplish.

SHADOW

 

[DCrake]

Shadow:

I totally agree with your comments, however, as this would involve another learning curve (crystal reports) my suggestion was to give her a more immediate solution. For my vb projects I tend to use a vb compatiable report designer that I was given a few years ago. However where possible I tend to shy away from reports and do immediate automation to Excel or Word.

David

 

[shadow9449]

. For my vb projects I tend to use a vb compatiable report designer that I was given a few years ago.
David

Sounds interesting. What's it called? How does it compare to Access and Crystal?

SHADOW

 

[DCrake]

It is not the latest version but its called Data Dynamics Active Reports 2