How can I stop double-sided printing from breaking? - crystal-reports

We have a customer that generates reports using our software platform that utilizes Crystal Reports. Every now and then changes to the report are requested. All employees have virtual machines that have Crystal Reports and other software installed to make changes to customer items such as this one report template.
Every time we make modifications to the crystal report template and save it, even if it's something as insignificant as moving a text field up by 1 inch, double-sided printing breaks; instead of flipping text on the long edge of the page, two 1-sided pages are printed. However, that there is exactly one employee VM that does NOT break double-sided printing when the rpt is modified.
I have never seen anything like this. We have checked just about everything and don't know where to go next:
Customer printer settings are confirmed set to double-sided printing
Crystal Reports settings are identical
Section formulas and settings are identical
Making a 1:1 copy of the one working VM and making changes on the copy still breaks printing.
The only remaining suspicion I have left is the file format schema. We have access to Crystal Reports 11 Release 2 (11.5), but the schema is version 11.0.0. Can altering an 11.0.0 report using 11.5 cause this issue? Are there any other areas we should check that could be breaking printing?

Turns out our installation files for Crystal Reports XI R2 were corrupt somehow and was missing service packs. I downloaded a fresh copy of Crystal Reports XI R2 with all service packs up to SP6 and reinstalled it on my image. Printing doesn't break now.

Related

Crystal Reports: export datasource with report definition

I am stepping into a new reporting environment and I don't have a lot of background info yet. But my company utilizes a series of crystal reports.
I want to compare two reports that are identical except that they connect to different data sources. I can click on both reports in the Crystal Reports viewer, go to Database > Set Database Location and I am able to see the data source. If I do this for both reports in question, I can see that they both connect to different data sources, as expected.
However, when I export the two Crystal Reports as text files and then compare them using Notepad++, I don't see the datasource / connection string in the report files, so when I do a compare, they are exactly the same.
If the exported text files are exactly the same, how does Crystal Reports Viewer know to point one report towards a prod data source and another report towards the dev data source? It does not appear to be embedded in the exported metadata / report definition file.
Thank you!!
The connection info is simply not part of the exported report definition text.
But, obviously, it is part of the report definition.
If you need to export more detailed report definition information, including connection properties, consider getting a documentation utility. Ken Hamady maintains a list of those here.

Crystal Report "Error Detected by Export DLL" - Only Excel (Win7)

when I use crystal report export to Excel, below error throw out "Error in file XXXXX. Error detected by Export DLL.
This error only shown when export to excel, others like words/pdf working perfectly.
I'm using win7
I have seen this in two situations:
Situation #1
A long time ago, this was a known issue in Crystal Reports... 11 i think, not sure.
The solution was to install an update of ExporMoldeller.dll and crxf_pdf.dll.
It used to be available in this link
Situation #2
If you are using .NET Datasets as the data source of the report, it can occur is something is wrong with the datasets. I've seen this happen when columns have no types defined explicitly, when there are multiple tables in the dataset and one of them is empty or the link definitions in Crystal Reports are worng, or when there is an empty cell in one table that was supposed to contain an image.

crystal report 8.5 filter records

I am new to this position (production support) and asked to look into a problem in a crystal report 8.5. I am new to crystal report as well with some basic training only.
The report seems to be missing some records. It uses a SQL Server 2005 procedure as data source. I tested with same parameters the report used on the procedure and the it returns all records including the missing records in the report. So I think the report must filter the records. Then I checked Record Selection Formula, I saw something in there but it seems not related to the missing records. For testing, I commented them all, run the report but the records are still missing.
So I guess there may be something else that filters the data?
It turns out to be something in top N group expert. The report only lists top 50 items for a group based on sales units.
You might benefit from exporting the report definition into a .txt file by clicking file > export > export report > report definition txt ( you have to scroll for it). I believe this functionality existed back in 8.5.
What it does is display the underlying formatting, filtering and formulas in an easy to read format. You should be able to pick out what is happening much more quickly than clicking through all the potential places for something to be hidden. I see that you answered your own question but seeing that you're new to this position this is a troubleshooting tip I found invaluable.

Crystal Reports : Crosstab refuses not to paginate

I am using Crystal Reports 11 (XI) and I have a crosstab that has quite a few rows to it. Its publishing format is to Excel, so pagination doesn't really even make sense. However, no matter what I do it repeats the column/crosstab headers every couple dozen lines. I've tried:
-Increasing page size definition to max size (12x18) portrait
-Turning off pagination in the output settings
-Turning off horizontal pagination
-Deleting column headers (works) but I cannot delete the crosstab header
I'm running out of ideas.
If the goal is just to create an excel file with some pivoted data crystal reports is not the best way to do it. Check the first 5 minutes of this video:
http://www.r-tag.com/Pages/Preview_Demo.aspx
It compares the same data presented as a cross-tab in Crystal reports and pivot report based on a SQL ad-hoc query. SSRS is also part of the comparison and it is a better choice than Crystal too , but SQL ad-hoc query is my favorite for pivoted data.
P.S. I am proposing this alternative because the tool is free, it will save you development time and will create a better formatted excel file. If you are using BOE and you want to keep the report there this might not work for you.
The solution is as contrived as the problem...
There is no way in Crystal XI to "turn off" the crosstab pagination. It simply cannot be stopped. However, you can cheat the system by configuring a massive page size. In windows on your development machine, locate your XPS printer virtual device and choose "Print Server Properties" (in the top banner in Win 7+)
In the "Forms" tab, you will be able to configure a new paper form object of arbitrary size. Click on "Change Form Settings" and create a new page that is as large as you think you will need. I'm not aware of any limitations on this configuration, but I'm sure bad things happen if you go nuts.
Returning to crystal, go to printer configuration and select the XPS document printer as your target device for exports, and save the custom page size as the target paper type.
Now, the crosstab will assume you are printing to a massive sheet and will not attempt to paginate. As far as I can tell it's impossible to achieve the same effect any other way.
Here is a introduction about jasper crosstab.
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/jasper_reports/pdf/jasper_crosstabs.pdf
From the document, you can add two attributes in node
<crosstab isRepeatColumnHeaders="false" isRepeatRowHeaders="false">
...
</crosstab>

Features in Crystal Reports 2011 that could cause failure in a Crystal XI reader

I've developed a report in Crystal Reports 2011 (v14), and I need to get it to work in an application that's built on the reader for Crystal Reports XI (v11). I'm working on procuring XI, so I can adapt the report there, but in the mean time, it would be nice if I could just get the report as developed in 2011 to work. I was hoping this would work due to the forward compatibility note quoted in this answer.
When I try to run my report in the XI-based application, I get
ERROR: -2147206429
Invalid TLV Record.
In module: Crystal Reports ActiveX Designer
My suspicion is that my report is using some feature in 2011 that's not present in XI and somehow stumping the XI reader engine. When I took a report that had been developed in XI and opened and saved it in 2011, it opened with no trouble in XI.
What features are there in 2011 and not XI that could be tripping me up here? What should I check my report for to make it most likely that it will run in XI?
UPDATE:
I tried rebuilding my report, one feature at a time, to see when the error kicks in on XI. It does as soon as I make a parameter's prompt group a dynamic list that queries a stored procedure or a table, even if I don't set any special characteristics of the prompt group. Given that dynamic parameter prompt groups came in with XI, shouldn't this work?
There aren't many- and as you state- i've always found them to be fully backward compatible.
The main things that spring to mind are the dynamic sort control and the ability to create optional parameters.
If you wish to attach the report I can try opening/saving/checking.