Chapter VI.4. Building Professional Reports with Crystal Reports

Reports are the lifeblood of any good software. Without good reports, users abandon your software. One of the best reporting tools available is Crystal Reports, which is a product included with Visual Studio 2008. Crystal Reports isn't a Microsoft product; it's owned by a company named Business Objects (www.businessobjects.com).

This chapter shows you how to design reports using the embedded Crystal Reports Designer. You see how to connect to your data sources, including ADO.NET DataSets. Of course, creating the report is only half the battle. You need to know how to integrate the report in your application. Read here to also discover a few pointers on grouping, filtering, and creating formulas.

Choosing the Right Crystal Edition

Business Objects sells many editions of Crystal Reports. The latest version is version 2008. You can download a free trial version at

www.businessobjects.com/forms/default.asp?id=
           701600000009BXP&extcmp=cr2008_product_promo_2

It's sold in these editions:

  • Developer — Integrate reports into custom applications. This version includes a license to redistribute reporting components.

  • Standard Edition — Create reports based on data stored on a local computer.

  • Professional Edition — Create reports by using more than 35 data drivers, access custom in-memory data, or write custom SQL commands.

  • Integrated Developer Environment (IDE) — Several editions of Crystal Reports that are created by Business Objects are ...

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