Crystal Reports for Eclipse Designer Guide

Export format types

The export formats supported by Crystal Reports can be broadly categorized in two groups: page-based formats and record-based formats.
Page-based formats tend to produce a more exact output. The emphasis of these formats is layout representation and formatting. Formatting refers to attributes such as font style, text color, text alignment, background color, and so on. Layout refers to object position, object size, and the relationship between these attributes and other objects. Depending on the format you choose, it may not be possible for the program to preserve all layout and formatting perfectly, but page-based formats, in general, preserve these properties as closely as possible.
With record-based formats, the emphasis is on data rather than the layout and formatting. However, in some formats you will notice that some formatting is exported. Some of the record-based formats are only data-exchange formats.
Character-Separated Values (CSV)
The Character-Separated Values (CSV) format is a record-based, data-exchange format. It exports the report object contents as a set of values separated by a comma.
Like record-style formats, the CSV format also creates one line of values for each record in your report. A record contains all of the fields in each section of your report as seen in the Design view. That is, fields in the Report Header section are exported first, followed by the Page Header section, the Group Header section, the Body section, the Group Footer section, the Report Footer section, and finally, the Page Footer section.
The CSV format cannot be used to export reports with cross-tabs; nor can it be used to export reports with subreports in Page Header or Page Footer sections.
Microsoft Excel (XLS)
Microsoft Excel is a record-based format that concentrates on data. This format does export most of the formatting, however, it does not merge cells; each object is added to only one cell. This format can also export certain kinds of summaries as Excel functions. The summaries that are supported are SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MIN and MAX.
Microsoft Excel (XLS) - Page based
Microsoft Excel Page-based format converts your report contents into Excel cells on a page-by-page basis. Contents from multiple pages are exported to the same Excel worksheet. If a worksheet becomes full and there is more data to export, the export program creates multiple worksheets to accommodate the data. If a report object covers more than one cell, the export program merges cells to represent a report object. Microsoft Excel has a limit of 256 columns in a worksheet; therefore, any report object (or part of it) that is added to cells beyond 256 columns is not exported. This export format retains most of the formatting, but it does not export line and box objects from your report.

Note:
The page-based Excel format in Crystal Reports for Eclipse does not exhibit the same behavior as the page-based Excel format in Crystal Reports 2008. The following are the main categories of known differences between the two versions:
  • Unsupported objects
    The Crystal Reports for Eclipse Java runtime engine does not support all the object that can be embedded in a report. For example, OLAP Grids and Map objects are not supported.
    The horizontal alignment of these unsupported objects is not respected in the Java runtime engine.
  • Character rendering
    The character rendering technology differs between Crystal Reports for Eclipse and Crystal Reports 2008. This means that the size of each individual character can have slight differences (1 pixel) that add up over time and create additional rows or columns.
  • Cross-tabs
    • When cross-tab objects are in repeated sections - for example, the Group Header - enhanced exporting functionality output will be different between Crystal Reports for Eclipse and Crystal Reports 2008. This behavior also applies to cross-tabs that are embedded in subreports.
    • When cross-tab objects are overlapped, enhanced exporting functionality output will be different between Crystal Reports for Eclipse and Crystal Reports 2008.
  • Page breaks
    Page breaks are displayed differently between Crystal Reports for Eclipse and Crystal Reports 2008 since the products use different rendering technologies.
  • Charting
    Crystal Reports for Eclipse and Crystal Reports 2008 use different underlying charting engines. This can create slightly different looking chart output.
Adobe Reader (PDF)
Adobe Reader format is a page-based format. The exported documents are intended for printing and redistribution. Acrobat format will export both layout and formatting in a manner that is consistent with how the report looks on the Preview tab. Acrobat format embeds the TrueType fonts that appear in the document. (Non-TrueType fonts are not supported.) This export format does not support Microsoft font-linking technology—which is used to provide support for some extended character sets such as Chinese HKCS. Therefore, the fonts used in the report must contain all of the required glyphs. These URI types are supported for hyperlinks: "http:", "https:" and "mailto:".
Microsoft Word (RTF)
The Microsoft Word (RTF) format is a page-based format, but not all of the layout and formatting are preserved in the output.
Rich Text Format (RTF)
The Rich Text Format (RTF) format is similar to the Microsoft Word (RTF) format.
Crystal Reports (RPT)
This format exports (saves) your report with the current data without modifying the original report.



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