Formatting Excel Output of Crystal Reports with Multiple Subqueries - crystal-reports

I've put together a summary report in Crystal Reports 2013 that has about 10-12 subreports. Each subreport is a fairly basic query that produces one or several lines rows and columns of data. I'm using SAP's Central Management Console to produce the reports, with the output an Excel output.
My problem is that my excel output is coming out unstandardized i.e. random extra empty rows and columns, data and header mismatches, different widths of rows and columns, etc.
I've been messing around with the formatting setting w/in Crystal Reports (standardizing size and shape of subqueries on the preview screen, supressing empty areas, etc.) but can't come close to getting the Excel output to look the way I want.
Is there a specific export formatting function/area within Crystal Reports that will allow me to design the export in the way I'd like? And if not, are there any ways to format multiple subqueries w/in Crystal Reports so their format in an Excel export is uniform?

If i really understood your issue, you have troubles with the alignment of data, cells and stuff like that in the spreadsheet, is it correct?
If so, the solution is to review the align of your fields in the report. It is very boring. You can use some functionalitis like:
right click a field and use "align to grid"
select two fields, right click and use "left align" and "top align"
change the property "gridsize" of the "report" to a higher value and use the keyboard to position the fields.
Avoid empty spaces between field at most.
Keep your eyes on the rulers.
Furthermore, check the version of Crystal Reports you are using. There is a good improvement about it from version 11 to 13.

Exporting to Excel seems a bit qwerky because the same steps do not necessarily work for all reports (my experience at least). Keep this in mind when reading the following steps. Perform the following steps on both the detail(footer if using grouping) and header rows where applicable:
Choose driver “Microsoft Excel(97-2003)”
Make sure the header and detail sections have no spaces in between the columns
Make sure the header and detail column boxes align perfectly (should see red crosses when alignment is correct).
Select all fields on the row, right-click, align to top (if this does try aligning to grid)
Right-click to the left of the detail columns and “Select All Section Objects”
Right-click in the same location and choose “Arrange Lines” then “Fit Section”
Perform steps 4 & 5 on the header columns as well
Open Section Expert, select “Suppress Blank Section” for all unused sections
If none of the above work, use driver “Microsoft Excel (97-2003) (Data Only) “
Headers will still appear in the report but will not be in bold

Related

Is it possible to adjust the amount of columns (left to right) in Crystal Report based on user input?

I am trying to get crystal to print the details field from Left to Right to an excel spreadsheet output, rather than from the top of the page to the bottom. Setting the details section to 'Format with Columns' and using the layout option of 'Across then Down' doesn't seem to acheive the effect I am looking for. I want to create a given number of columns to the right based on user input passed into Crystal parameters, but I can't seem to find anything within crystal reports that will allow this.
Is it possible that I'm missing something simple, or does Crystal Reports lack the functionality to accomplish columns/rows being generated from left to right rather than up to down?
Thanks in advance for any help!
No such functionality in Crystal alone but you can take control of the Excel output logic using a UFL (User Function Library) allowing a detail-level Crystal formula to write to a specified Excel cell. As the formula progresses through the detail rows, it would increment column/row targets based on the Columns parameter.
You can create the UFL yourself. Alternatively, at least one of the 3rd-party UFLs listed here provides such a function.

Grid/table in report

I need to display data in a basic grid, with borders, column headers, etc. How can this be done in a Crystal Report without having to draw every single line and position/size every field?
I've tried a lot of different things, but it is all so sloppy and time consuming. Isn't there an easy way to just display a table in a grid?
the solution here turned out to not use Crystal Reports. To use alerts in SAP BizOne. It works great for a quick well formatted data subscription case
A Crosstab can display results in a footer after the main report has been run. This is the least "time consuming" option, as you put it.
Otherwise the quickest way to turn an existing report into a "table" is to simply add line elements that span from the header to the footer, dividing your fields into columns. The line elements will resize such that they cover all sections:

Report vertical layout

I have existing report w/ "groups" for Total/Directs/Warehouse/Credits that span horizontally. I need to now stack these groupings vertically. What is the best way to do this in CR? I am used to SSRS, Excel, PowerBI, etc. Crystal Reports is much less intuitive than those tools.
Do I need some kind of funky nested groups? Sub reports? How should we approach this? We assumed it would be a pretty simple formatting/layout change. But it looks like it's actually quite complex to do this.
Original:
How it needs to be re-worked:
If the entire table you're showing is in a Footer, you can just add 3 new footer sections and duplicate the table in each (removing any columns you don't need.) Just right click the relevant section and Insert Section Below.
Otherwise you'll need to use subreports. But since you have the columns already configured, all you really have to do is:
Save 4 subreports, Total, Directs, Warehouse, and Credits. (Just save a copy of your existing report, and delete everything that doesn't need to show up in Total. Rinse and repeat.)
Import each and add the parameters as subreport links
Give them each their own section

How to accommodate 100 columns in a single report?

Requirement:
I have one new requirement in Crystal Reports.
I need to show 100 columns in the report. I have tried using Landscape option but maximum I am able to accommodate are 20 columns.
Can someone have any idea on how can I accommodate 100 columns. Thanks in advance.
Practically it is not suggested to take 100 columns..as this can create an issue while monitoring the data in crystal reports
But if you still need to accompdate the 100 columns then follow below process.
go to File --> Page Setup --> there go to Unit --> for selected option give maximun size for Horizontal Component
This will increase the size of the report and now can insert required number of columns
Since this report is not for print and will be exported into an Excel format, just make your page as big as you need it. This can be done by going to "File" → "Page Setup" and adjusting the following things:
Check "Dissociate Formatting Page Size and Printer Paper Size"
Might as well flip the page to "Landscape"
Enter a large number in "Horizontal"
You should also note that because you're exporting this data (especially as "Excel - Data Only"), you don't need to make the columns wide enough to display; as long as the field is on the canvas they should show up as a column.
The size of the columns doesn't matter if you are going to export to Excel data only. So you can make the columns as small as you want, even if the report is not readable it will be exported OK.
If you want just to export some data and your report does not include subreports you can go without Crystal reports. Will be much simpler to set the SQL and preview data in a grid (which is scrollable) and then export it to Excel. It will look better too.
There are some tools that can do this and I guess you can easily find something on Google. I am using R-Tag (www.r-tag.com), which is free. You can see it in action here: http://www.r-tag.com/Pages/Preview_Demo.aspx

How to create Excel document with proper cell alignment using Ireport?

I can able to create Excel document using Jasper Report but the problem is that fields are not properly aligned in the cells of excel sheet and all the data are populated in the plain surface without any cells.i.e) I cannot see any cells in the data populated area.Can u please give me suggestion to make proper Excel document with cell alignment.
I had this same struggle and came up with the following. At the time, I was using iReport (3.0.0) and was able to generate a good xls file. It may be easier in newer versions of iReport and/or JasperReports. Here's what I did:
I created a new report using the new report wizard and chose a tabular template. This creates a report with all of the fields in a line with no gaps between them. It is very key that fields are vertically aligned, that all the same height, and that there are no gaps between fields.
I removed all of the extra objects created (title, extra lines) except for the fields and the headers. I then collapsed all of the bands except the column header and detail bands.
On the report properties, I checked "Ignore pagination"
I changed the text color of the header fields, otherwise it ends up as white on white.
The rest of the important options can be found by selecting Options -> Export Options from the menu and then scrolling down to the "XLS Exporter" section. I attached a screen shot of the options I chose. You can experiment with the settings, but I found (through trial and error) that the options I ended up with work pretty well. These options are not stored in the report def file, they are attributes of the thing generating the report. iReport takes care of it when testing in that environment. We are using custom Java to generate the report in production and we set the attributes there.
XLS Exporter Dialog http://www.imagechicken.com/uploads/1270760205041768200.png