Using Crystal Reports in Visual Studio 2005 (C# .NET Windows App)

Question

I need to create reports in a C# .NET Windows app. I\'ve got an SQL Server 2005 database, Visual Studio 2005 and am quite OK with creating stored procedures and datasets.

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Answer 1

You can use the report viewer with client side reporting built into vs.net (ReportBuilder/ReportViewer control). You can create reports the same way as you do for sql reporting services, except you dont need sql server(nor asp.net). Plus you have complete control over them(how you present, how you collect data, what layer they are generated in, what you do with them after generating, such as mailing them, sending to ftp, etc). You can also export as PDF and excel.

And in your case building up a report from data and user input, this may work great as you can build up your own datasource and data as you go along. Once your data is ready to be reported on, bind it to your report.

The reports can easily be built in Visual Studio 2005 (Add a report to your project), and be shown in a Winforms app using the ReportViewer control.

Here is a great book i recommend to everyone to look at if interested in client side reports. It gives a lot of great info and many different scenarios and ways to use client side reporting.

http://www.apress.com/book/view/9781590598542