Crystal Reports Have You....

[HunterMcCray]

I have been writing Basic Code for over twenty years. I have been through the snarly mess of the origional ISAM files in Proffesional Basic (DOS) and all of the VB upgrades(?). I have used CR(4), CR(4.5), and now CR(7). Is it just me or is it getting harder and harder to make something simple work? Crystal Reports has given me more problems than I care to enumerate upon, but I hesitate to jump ship and use something else. Is anyone aware of a simple way to output formatted data to a printer without all of the overhead of CR? I would love something as simple as "Lprint Using FormatString$, DataType" I do not need images, fonts, fancy calculated fields, colors or anything other than "$", ".", Numbers and text. My data source of choice would be arrays of data declared as their specific type, but that seems to be a bit out of vogue. How about something simple like just printing a Data Bound Grid in WYSIWYG like you can do in ACCESS? What about printing a form in WYSIWYG? I hope that I have just missed something in all of the documentation that I have read. If so, a little help in pointing me toward this information would be wonderful. If not I would love to hear some similar complaints!

Hunter

[monte96]

Most of the heaviness of Crystal is due to it's many database and export dlls. If you know which ones you are using, you can simply not distribute the extra ones.

I use CR8. It's sometimes a pain.. I like to call it the best reporting package available that programmers all love... to hate.

[a2427]

Hunter,

I am fairly new to VB, but I have found VB6's data report designer is adequate for creating/printing simple reports. If less overhead is what you want, this might do the trick. In addition, if you use the data environment, the reports can be as simple as drag and drop.

Shawn

[HunterMcCray]

Originally posted by a2427
Hunter,

I am fairly new to VB, but I have found VB6's data report designer is adequate for creating/printing simple reports. If less overhead is what you want, this might do the trick. In addition, if you use the data environment, the reports can be as simple as drag and drop.

Shawn
I have only recently upgraded to VB6. Most of my work in VB6 has been making things that worked in VB5 continue to work in VB6. I am a bit concerned with the ADO recordsets. Most of my code and reports center around my retail business where we use a great deal of code to build SQL queries. In DAO Double quotes allow the use of single quotes in string query parameters. In ADO, from what I have read, this is not permissible. It does sound like the data environment and data report designer are exactly what I am looking for. I need to play with them and see if I can mix and match ADO and DAO without producing bad side effects. Is it permissible to have open ADO and DAO connections to the same database within the same program? I am unsure; this whole ADO is unfamiliar to me. Thank you for pointing out a "New" feature of VB. I have ignored the data environment and data report designer when I should have studied them.

Thanks,

Hunter

[spyder]

A simple Way to Print without all the fonts and stuff is to use the Print method of the printer object. The rest will work the way youa re familiar with in the old versions of Basic and VB

Example
Printer.print "This is output to the printer"

That's all there is to it.

Note: that you will not have the print Method show when you type everything out. But trust me, its there.

Devin

[HunterMcCray]

Originally posted by spyder
A simple Way to Print without all the fonts and stuff is to use the Print method of the printer object. The rest will work the way youa re familiar with in the old versions of Basic and VB

Example
Printer.print "This is output to the printer"

That's all there is to it.

Note: that you will not have the print Method show when you type everything out. But trust me, its there.

Devin
Thank you. You have got to be kidding me, I have been working under the assumption that there was no way to print directly to the printer. I have finally found the Printer Object in MSDN and am reading all about it. Has this object been around VB4 and I have just been missing it. Thank you!

Hunter

[monte96]

Yes, the printer object is an option for just outputing text to the a printer. You can set the font and all other printer specific options then use Printer.Print <text>

And it has been around since at LEAST VB4... maybe 3