Crystal Reports and fuzzy charts 1

[dswitzer]

I know that VB.NET has a pre-packaged version of Crystal Reports (CR.NET? or something) included...but my results have been less than spectacular in terms of charting/graphing.

I am trying to move my mail merge process (heavily graph/table intensive) away from MSWord/Access and have been playing around with this for three days and have not been able to create clean, crisp images and image text with this. It is just plain fuzzy when you look at it. I doubt it is the printers because everything else looks fine (web,word charts,excel charts,etc) -- and I have tried it on multiple printers. Even the example charting they provide is just not crisp.

I was thinking of upgrading to the full Crystal Version but have some questions before I spend my hard-earned cash:

1. Will the full version integrate with .NET?
2. Will I get a lift in ability to control all the pieces of the chart -- axis names,font,etc?
3. If I can integrate, and I can get a crisp chart from this upgrade -- when I create an application -- will the end user have the same code to create the nice chart or will they still be limited to the basic version of Crystal included with .NET?

Is there a better third-party vendor I should look at?

I gotta say -- this is frustrating -- so much potential and the charting just stinks...maybe I just don't know how to use it correctly?

Has anyone else noticed this and can offer some suggestions/solutions?
Dave

 

[SqueakinSweep]

1) The full version will integrate. The bundle that ships with .Net is bug ridden, although their are patches available from Business Objects, which might be your best first port of call.

2) Not sure...

3) You issue your .Net app with CR Merge Modules which means your users have a runtime version of the same version of CR that you develop in



Sweep
...if it works dont f*** with it
...if its f****ed blame someone else
...if its your fault that its f***ed, say and admit nothing.

 

[dswitzer]

Thanks for the quick response.

Have you used the full version? Any idea if I can create color gradients within columns? combo charts (1 series line, 1 series column), etc?

Probably a more appropriate post in the CR area - I'll go there if I don't get any responses here.

Thanks again.

 

[SqueakinSweep]

Dave

Im using version 10, but Im using CR for nothing but standard form type reports and labels. I only really used CR then, because of problems I had writing my own reports using Printdocument.

I know Component One also do Chart controls, which I think can be printed using their PrintDocument class. You can evaluate these for free...you just have to tolerate the nag screens.





Sweep
...if it works dont f*** with it
...if its f****ed blame someone else
...if its your fault that its f***ed, say and admit nothing.

 

[chrissie1]

or try this

http://www.9rays.com

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

If you want to get an answer read this FAQ faq796-2540
There's no such thing as a winnable war - Sting

 

[dswitzer]

Sweep - thanks -- downloaded crystal demo and it looks very flexible. ( I guess they give you the crappy version in .NET so you will get hooked and upgrade at some point - which worked...)

Thanks chrissie - good stuff there I may want at some point.
For future readers of this post:

http://www.9rays.net

Thanks.