I want to have this layout in Crystal Reports:
How can I do this? If it cant be done in CR or SSRS, is there any other alternatives?
I don't believe this can be done with Crystal Reports. I'm not as familiar with SSRS, but after looking through the field options I don't believe it can be done with it either. In general field locations are set static in reporting solutions.
I think this would be best done with html/css or even XSL. I don't know the scope of the issue, but I'd assume that you should be able to output an html or xml file from your application which could be opened with a web browser. For html you should be able to use the align or even float attributes or text-align in css to accomplish this.
I hope this helps.
If you want to have multiple columns of static text in Crystal Reports, then you'd just have to get creative with multiple text boxes, i.e. create 2 text boxes side-by-side and add text to each one until it looks right.
If you want to have 2 columns of data, here's how:
Keep it simple and start with a blank report.
Add your fields of interest to the details section. Resize them so that they only use the first 4 inches of space.
Go into your Section Expert->Details and turn on the Format with Multiple Columns option.
A new tab will appear called Layout. For this example, let's set the Width to 4 inches and leave the Gaps at 0.
Preview your report. If you have enough data in your dataset, it will automatically flood over to the right side of your screen.
It'll take a few minutes of fidgeting with the measurements to get everything looking the way you want. You can even have more than 2 columns if you set the Detail Width small enough.
Also, there is also an option in the Layout menu called "Format Groups with multiple column". It's hard to describe in text, but play with this if you have any grouping levels.
Related
I have just recently begun using JasperSoft studio for a project I am on with very tight deadlines. Due to these constraints I was not able to spend my time researching the "correct" way to lay out a jasper report. Now I am stuck with really large bands that contain tables which tend to overlap the other content in said band.
So my question is this, what is the best way to create/modify these tables so that when the dataset in them expands that they don't overflow ontop of the other data in the current band?
I have found that if I create a new band and put the table inside that band it seems to size dynamically, however I cannot seem to find a nice way to create new bands either. My report currently has over 100 bands and whenever I create a new one I have to click the "move up" button ~100 to put the band in place and the re-arrange the other parts around it.
I have tried modifying the band's layout to "Vertical layout" instead of "Free Layout", but that was less than successful hosing the band's formatting and the data elements wouldn't display properly.
So my question is this, what is the best way to create/modify these
tables so that when the dataset in them expands that they don't
overflow ontop of the other data in the current band?
I'd say the best way would be to avoid using tables, and using the bands themselves instead. You could use groups to create "sub" headers and footers, and you can also manage to duplicate these headers and footers so that you can improve your layout. If create a new report based on a template or look at the examples provided in the Jasper Reports library pack, you may notice that the bands are used either as "row" or as "header"/"footer".
My report currently has over 100 bands and whenever I create a new one I have to click the "move up" button ~100 to put the band in place and the re-arrange the other parts around it.
And remember, a subreport is your friend in times like this. Again it can help you to organize your report and even provide more flexibility to your layout.
Finally, I believe that grouping so many bands with so many tables in the same report may cause you a big trouble (well, you have already noticed some issues). So maybe taking a bit of time to study more the "bands" system and the "subreport" component may help you. The Jaspersoft Studio documentation on the report structure is a good start.
I believe that dealing with Jasper Reports is basically dealing with these two components (bands and subreports).
I have designed a report in SSRS 2008 with three tablix that display data from different SP. When I designed the report and then previewed it, the report looked perfect. I deployed the report to our report server and viewed it. The report displays the last table with several columns that are either too large or too small. When I then export the report to PDF after I run it on the report server then the report appears the way that I designed it.
Does anyone have an idea what could cause the report to display wrong when it is run but correctly when it is exported to a PDF?
This is pretty common. I struggle with this same issue.
Edit: double check CanGrow and CanShrink on both the cells and tablix. Maybe your is interpreted differently and therefore is larger in web view?
Firstly, you're just going to have to play with your settings until it looks like in all output formats. However, here are a few tips to help:
Don't use rectangles, ever. Everything should be in a tablix cell. You have much finer control and it is less likely to blow up in PDF and web viewer.
Stay away from your margins. I try to keep at least .25"
Watch your padding. If you have top and bottom padding of 4, and your text is 10, but your cell only allows 16, then you're going to have a bad time
Use Ctrl + Mouse Scroll to zoom in and check formatting. This won't show a lot of errors, but it's something to check.
Even though your top cell and top line of the tablix should be identical, they aren't always. I can't tell you why. However, don't put a BorderStyle on both. Sometimes the border doubles up and looks wider in some of the output formats.
Always check all output formats prior to handing your project to QA. If is very common for report formatting to blow up once deployed. I have to double check Portrait vs. Landscape formatting and my borders. I miss that sometimes.
Sometimes font sizes can be interpreted differently. There can be very slight differences that can change the sizes of your cells.
I hope this helps.
I have a 2008 SSRS Report that is being export to as MS Word doc using the standard Export functionality provided by the SSRS tool. Even though the data on the report is textual in nature and resides in text boxes, the Export is rendering the text using tables. This formatting is too cumbersome for the users. Is ther a way to adjust how an MS Word is rendered using the SSRS Export functionality
The regular export can be pretty ugly. OfficeWriter has export functionality that can be a bit prettier. If you need a ton of control over the style of the resulting word documents you should take a look at it.
DISCLAIMER: I'm one of the engineers who built the latest version.
Is ther a way to adjust how an MS Word is rendered using the SSRS Export functionality?
No
MS word and SSRS are like the long lost friends still trying to figure out things on rendering. One way I dealt with this problem is to make sure there is a master tablix and the rows are filled with the tablix calls the information to be displayed and aligned. If there is any sort of information to be displayed together place a different tablix and try to avoid using the row visibility which have heavy chance to leave empty space when rendered to word.
And there are chances of the header and footer to be truncated. To solve this place a text box above the entire header and below the footer make sure the textbox font color is white to hide the textbox.
I have a Crystal XI Release 2 report that my client wants to see on two pages. He wants the report to print the demographic information such as (name, address, etc...) for a person on the first page and the totals for the person need to print on the second page. The first page will include as many rows as will fit and the second page will have the same amount of rows which correspond one for one to the first page. Then the third page will contain a new page of people starting where the first ended.
He basically is looking for printing similar to how Excel prints (and please don't tell me to Export to Excel and print from there).
I came up with two ideas for doing this, but only got anywhere with one. The first was to run two reports (one for the demographic info and the other for the totals) which would be collated together somehow. I didn't get very far with this, but I didn't spend a ton of time researching this so I still think this could be an option.
The second way was to extend the report design to the width of two landscape pages, add my fields, and then change my page size back to a single landscape size before I get ready to print. This way sorta works, but can cause some weird issues. One is that if you try to edit/add a field on the second page when the report size is set to a single page landscape the fields are moved to the far right of the first page which makes sense because I would think that is supposed to be the editable region of the designer so I'd assume you're not supposed to have fields outside of this region.
All in all, the second way works, but I know there has to be a better way to do this. I wanted to see if anyone has had a similar request or have some other ideas on a better way to do this. Thanks
I can't think of an easy way to do this in Crystal.
You could get all hacky on the datasource and duplicate every 20(or however many fit on one page) rows. Then you would set up 2 details sections, one section for demographics and the other for totals. Then conditionally suppress them depending on remainder(pagenumber, 2).
Or you could use a subreport that accepts paging parameters and only returns 20 rows per page. But I'm not even sure if you can link a subreport parameter to the pagenumber special field.
How does your second way work? The extra fields just get printed on the next page somehow? However, the problem is that the fields stay outside the designer when you go back to one page and if you need to edit they all move back inside the designer? Couldn't you increase the page width before editing? That's not too bad if it somehow prints it out correctly every time.
I guess I will mark this as the answer since I still haven't been able to figure out a better way around it. If anyone finds a better way then post a response and if it works I think can toggle the answer.
What I do to get around this is to set my printer to the "Microsoft Office Document Image Writer" and then change the width to the widest it will allow which is 36". Then I put the demographic information from the beginning of the section to around 11" and put the totals stating just to the right of where the first section ended and go for another page width.
Then I make whatever changes that I need to make and set the printer back to the printer I want to use for the correct size. After you do this you will find that the editable area only extends to the first page, but you can see the second page of fields to the right. If you try to edit a field on the second page the field will move to the far right of the editable region which is at the far right of the first page so make sure you reset your printer before making edits.
I think I also had to play around with the width of the detail section on the layout tab of the section expert to get the report to print correctly. I set it to the combined size of the 2 pages for mine to look correct.
I think that this is probably a super rare issue, but if you are having a similar issue, that is how I get around it.
I try to add dots between the page title and the page number in Crystal Reports for a table of content. I found http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1545153&page=1 in the web, but I wonder if there's a more simple and direct way to get the same result.
I'm using CR shipping with VS 2008.
You could draw a dotted line behind the page title and page number fields, bring the fields to the front, and set their backgrounds to white. It wouldn't quite be the periods you're looking for, but it's a bit less baroque than the other method.