I'm in an environment where I have created reports in CrystalReports 10 and only want my users to view the report from an external application. The application is already set up to open the report with crystal, but I don't want my users to be able create or change the report. I can't seem to find a command line option to do this. Is there a runtime only version of Crystal?
embed crviewer and craxdrt components in your app (delivered with CR developer's edition, free to distribute) so that you'll be able to view reports without modifying them. Basic manipulations (zoom, search, export to pdf, display/hide details or groups) can still be done.
If you must launch this viewer from a command line, I'd advise you to embed it in an office document/file and manage it through VBA. You could for example launch the runtime version of Access (free to distribute) that will contain one generic form for Crystal Reports display.
There are Crystal Reports viewer components which you can use in your projects. They are coming with the Crystal Reports Developer editions and you can use them in almost every programming language. There you can define the report as view only if you want.
Go to SAP.com and search for "Crystal Reports Viewer". It may or may not do what you want.
Also take a look at "Crystal Reports Server". CRS XI is a nice reporting portal with many useful server-side features. Schedule reports to run and auto-publish. Generate PDF or Excel output. Limit access to reports (or groups of reports) by specific users, etc. But for your application you can use HTTP access within your application to the published results. This is a good solution for example when you have a large number of users viewing the same reports.
What about marking the file as read-only? If the viewer opiton isn't open to you.
Related
Is it possible to run from a script running in Cygwin in any way a crystal report with parameters and get the report back in pdf format?
What i am trying to do is - I created a crystal report and I need it to run at night from a "scheduler".
I need to know if it is possible to run the report from a script (including sending the report 2 parameters) and have the report save to a PDF file automatically?
Thank you!
There are Crystal Reports SDKs for .NET and Java, available on the official download pages: https://www.crystalreports.com/download/
And, of course, a wide variety of third-party tools that promise to support scheduled report generation – I'd suggest to google after "crystal reports scheduler" or take Ken Hamady's list as a starting point: https://www.kenhamady.com/productlinks/
I have search everywhere on Internet to protect my source of Crystal Reports or protect them by any means but all in vain.
I am using crystal-reports ver. 9. and Developing Reports for an accounting and financing solution. and need to protect the reports that no one can mess with the reports.
Any help is appreciated.
Regards.
Jamshaid Riaz
There is no way to do this with Crystal 9, you need to upgrade to Crystal 2011 or above and use RPTR file. RPTR file is a run-time report , which can be run as a normal report by the end user but cannot be edited. RPTR file is created from a regular report using export. You will keep the regular report (RPT file) for development and export it to RPTR and deploy it when it is necessary. There are some tools , which pretend that they secure any Crystal report file , but these are false statements and the files can be easily open in design mode.
To make the report read-only:
Navigate to File Menu --> Report Options -->Select the 'Read-only' check box-->click 'OK'
my client wants the legal department to do all the mailing reports for this system. I want to use Crystal for the reports instead of the clients idea of developing a reports package from scratch. The hangup with crystal is their legal department wants to do the editing of the reports in Word and have a glorified mail merge generate the PDF files that goes off for printing.
Ive played with it for a while, is there a way that i can get Crystal to take in a word document as a template and basically replicate Word's mail merge but on Crystal Server so i have the report history?
Word can not natively act as a template for a RPT file. You could write an application that parses the DOC and applies it a pre-built report using the CR SDK.
I've used Word's mail-merge functionality in the past--it's fairly reliable.
You might also consider JangoMail too. Their email-merge functionality is pretty sophisticated.
I have a Crystal Reports project that I am working on where I need to generate a label with UPC-A's. After doing a bit of research, I've found that Azalea Software offers a tool that is suppose to integrate barcode objects into your application.
I purchased the software from Azalea, followed all of their instructions and I can not get their software to work with my report. I don't want to speak ill of Azalea, because their support has been great, but is anyone aware of a legitimate alternative for UPC-A barcode creatioon from within Crystal Reports 2008?
I don't mind purchasing another 3rd party API, I just need to be able to generate dynamic UPC-A images from the UPC-A numbers that I need to encode stored within my database.
Further information-- this is a label document that is printed from a ClickOnce published application that uses the Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 runtime, and the Crystal Reports Document Viewer control to view and print these labels.
We use IDAutomation for our barcoding. Very easy to use when installed, you use it like a font on calculated barcode fields. We use it mainly for Code-39 and Code-128 barcodes; though looking at the site it can make UPC/EAN codes too. It also has a selection of sizes for each barcode, alongside the normal font resizing.
On our version you have to install the fonts on every client computer running the report locally; but only once on telnet servers etc.
We have a purchased application (I'm told it's .NET, it's client server, running on Windows XP, connecting to SQL Server 2005) that uses a Crystal Reports runtime and separate report files (.rpt) to do it's reporting function. I have a copy of the CR Designer program but we don't have the CR Enterprise software. I can open the reports in the designer, get to the SQL Server data source (and any others, I guess), add them to the report, run it, print it -- but I can't figure out how to use the same Datasource, which is a subset of the tables in the database that it's connecting to, to do it, and I can't figure out how to save the report files so they'll work with the application. Real gravy would be coming up with new reports.
Is this even possible?
If you open up the report and then go to Database, Set Datasource Location, under the Properties section you will find a lot of info about the datasource and where it is getting it's info from. If the purchased application is creating its own datasource internally though and supplying it to the report at runtime, the best option that I can think of is to start a trace on the SQL Server and then run a report. You should be able to see the SQL that is issued by the Datasource and replicate it in your own version.
You have the possibility to manage your connection's properties at runtime (ie while launching CR from your app). Here is a proposal: Crystal Reports Datasource remap
If you cannot access your app code, you should then do as proposed by #Anthony, by updating all your connection strings in your rpt files, save the rpt files, and copy then on the corresponding report folder of your app: you might have to find where it's located in your system.
First of all, you'd better make sure you're not violating the application's license agreement by attempting to add to it in this way.
It may simply not be possible to add reports to the app in any case - it depends how it loads them and what it does with them.
To use the same datasource, you should just be able to open one of the .rpt files, then go to File > Save As, and give it a new name. Then modify it to what you want. Of course, if you don't know the authentication credentials the app passes to the report to connect, it would be tricky to test it.
It would help greatly if you gave us the name of the purchased application, as we don't really know what you're up against.
It could be that the application is passing through a filter of the data. So when you run the report from Crystal Reports Designer you get the whole data base, however when run through the program the parameters being passed to the report restrict the data back down.
Create a backup of the report. Then edit the existing report, make the changes you require, preview the report to get an idea it looks right, save the report and run the report via the application.
Warning:
As it has already been stated some vendors may not allow you to edit existing reports, your warranty/sport may be voided by editing existing reports, or reports could even be overwritten on the next update.