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Drawing evenly spaced lines in Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports Tip:
24 April 2011

When creating a lines and aligning/connecting those lines, it's helpful to know a couple tricks to ensure they are done correctly.

1. Use the Zoom feature from the View menu with a magnification factor of 400

2. Remove all the Guideline Markers on the left side of the form for the section currently being worked on.

3. Display the Gridlines and use the gridlines to help exactly position the lines to be drawn on the report. If a line is positioned exactly over the dots that mark a grid line, the dots turn white. To change the distance between grid lines from File | Options to display the File Options form – the grid setting is on the Layout tab.

The grid lines can also be used to position fields so that they print evenly across the page – to move fields up / down, position the tops of the fields on the dots of a grid line very exactly, by watching how the grid dots change from black to white as the field is moved
 

How to change an page header image at runtime in Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports Tip:
22 February 2011

So, you have created a great report for one department and another department wants the same report, only with their logo and department header information?  No problem, we'll show you how you can setup a report to change the page header information based on a parameter.  In the example below, we'll be using the xtreme database and filtering/displaying information based on the country.   More...

How to sort data within Crytal Reports

Crystal Reports Tip:
04 February 2011

The Sort Order allows you to organize the records by specified fields. You can sort the report by any of the fields available in the tables selected for your report.   More...

Creating an ODBC Connection

Crystal Reports Tip:
23 January 2011

Part One - Getting to know Crystal Reports. 

Before you can write your first report, you must first create an ODBC connection to your database.  In this example, we'll be using the Xtreme Database.  If you do not have a copy, you can download it here.  The steps to follow can be used to setup a connection to a MS Access Database / SQL Server Database.   More...

Tips on Drawing Evenly Spaced Lines

Crystal Reports Tip:
19 January 2011

1. Use the Zoom feature from the View menu with a magnification factor of 400

2. Remove all the Guideline Markers on the left side of the form for the section currently being worked on.

3. Display the Gridlines and use the gridlines to help exactly position the lines to be drawn on the report. If a line is positioned exactly over the dots that mark a grid line, the dots turn white. To change the distance between grid lines from File | Options to display the File Options form – the grid setting is on the Layout tab.

The grid lines can also be used to position fields so that they print evenly across the page – to move fields up / down, position the tops of the fields on the dots of a grid line very exactly, by watching how the grid dots change from black to white as the field is moved.

What's coming in Crystal Reports 2011?.. Um.. Not much.

Crystal Reports Blog:
14 January 2011

With a new year, brings word that a new version of Crystal Reports is right around the corner.  Crystal Reports 2011 / Crystal Reports 4.0 is set to be released in the 2nd quarter of this year.   The Crystal Reports community on linked recently posted a link to the 'what's new' document for Crystal Reports 2011.  The document is six pages long, two which are blank, one which holds a large office image, and another with a single line index. Awesome!..   One the one page that does contain information it list the following three new features:

1.  Read only format - Yes... You can put the clamps on the report so that others cannot alter them..

2. Support for Office 2007..  About time.. This should have been released in a service pack a couple years ago.

3. Build custom applications using Crystal Reports for Visual Studio - Sounds like this will help the VB developers.. But, what do I care.. I write reports and not VB apps.

Unless you need support for Office 2007,  Why upgrade?

More....

Strong quarter for SAP blighted by Oracle fined

Crystal Reports Blog:
14 January 2011

Applications giant enjoys strong growth in new licences, but penalty from Oracle lawsuit prevents profit report

Business applications vendor SAP posted a sharp rise in software sales during its fourth quarter, but the fallout from its recent legal dispute with rival Oracle took the shine off an otherwise strong performance.

For the three-month period ending 31 December, Europe’s largest software company reported €1.5 billion in new license sales, up 34% from €1.12 billion in the year ago quarter. Total revenues were €4.0 billion, a 27% rise from €3.2 billion a year ago.

Interesting Links
Can SAP sustain its turnaround?Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEO of enterprise applications vendor SAP, tells Information Age how he plans to maintain the company's new-found momentum

“This result is clear proof that focusing on innovation and customer value is the right strategy,” commented Jim Hagemann Snabe, SAP co-CEO, in a statement.

However, SAP’s recent legal defeat by competitor Oracle meant it was unable to report a profit figure. Oracle successfully sued SAP European vendor’s now defunct subsidiary TomorrowNow stole its intellectual property, and a US court ruled that SAP pay $1.3 billion in damages to Oracle. This amount is subject to appeal.

Despite this, SAP’s latest results suggest the company’s recent turnaround might be sustained. Hit hard by the recession, SAP’s financial woes culminated in the ejection of CEO Leo Apotheker at the start of 2010, but business has since recovered

How to add padding to a field

Example #1:

Fields needs to be 14 characters with spaces to the left:

Numbervar a:= Length(Trim({Credit.Credit Authorization Number}));
Space(14 - Numbervar a) & Trim({Credit.Credit Authorization Number});

Example #2:

Field needs to be 14 charters with ‘0’s  filling in any blank charters to the right:

Stringvar a := {Credit.Credit Authorization Number} + "0000000000000";
a [1 to 14]

More...