Crystal Reports

[hexed_keiyu]

can visual basic, ms access and crystal reports work together? how?
coz' im currently working on a system that generates reports using ms access database and crystal reports.. is there a better combination other than these three that i'v mentioned.. pls advice.. tnks in advance!

[rikshawdriver]

The version of Crystal Reports Shipped with Visual Basic is sufficient enough to create reports from VB.

Create your reports independently using Crystal Reports (Hope you have installed it. It is present in VS6 2nd CD, Common->Tools->Cryst..). Using the Crystal Report Control (Select it from Components) your VB Application can communicate with report. You can pass parameters,Formulas, Database filenames etc through this control. Using the Action Method of the control you can call the report (I think it is something like this, CrystalReport1.Action=2)

fyi, the seagate Crystal Reports now is known as Crystal Decisions Crystal Reports.

Hope this helps

[JonnyCab]

You can if you include the crystal reports viewer in your project references and make sure the export feature of crystal reports is enabled. The export feature allows you to export a report to any number of applications, including Excel, Word, PDF etc.

Im not sure what versions the report viewer control is available in but I am using Crystal Reports 8.

[rikshawdriver]

The version of CR shipped with Visual Studio 6 is 4.6 (or 4.2). If you wish to upgrade to version 8 then you have to purchase it sepetately from Crystal Decisions. CR ver 4.6 is not very good at Graphics. CR8 is a better choice.

Personally, I do not use CR for small projects though it is good at printing long reports and fast development. Although it takes a little more time to develop, I do use the Printer object in VB for graphics printing. (Look up Printer object in help)

[hexed_keiyu]

ic.. tnks again! ill go for cr8.. tnks guys.. i really appreciate it..