Is it possible to merge CR 11.5 reports?

[Former Member]

Hello,

We have a VB6 application with CR 11.5 reports.

My application has many reports, maybe 10 different layouts, that are dependent one another.

When the user wants these outputs to printer, it is OK, because I can call each report and send it to printer in the right sequence.

But when the user wants to see it on the screen, or when he wants it to be exported, so he gets many screens or many files, and it is not very practical.

When we generate this reports here in my office to send to customers, we have the help of the freeware PDFCreator, that allows us to keep the reports in a buffer to "merge" them in the end to one only PDF file.

My doubt is:

Is there any way to have this merging process automatic in my application?

Does CR have this functionality?

Thanks for any help!

Isis

Brazil

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Hello Isis

Unfortunately, not really. Best you could do is add the reports as subreport into sections of some main report, then hide the sections or not, as needed. This could get pretty memory intensive though and would require fair amount of careful coding. Probably your best bet is to get the customers to do as you do; use PDFCreator. An alternative may be for you to use Adobe APIs to merge the PDF outputs, then display that to the customer. Umm, there may even be other 3rd party pdf merging utilities that your customer may be able to obtain at more reasonable price point (google 'pdf merge' - I even found some utilities that are a free download). Note that I've never used any of these though.

- Ludek

Senior Support Engineer AGS Product Support, Global Support Center Canada

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[ido_millet · Accepted solution]

One of the 3rd-party Crystal Reports desktop schedulers listed at http://kenhamady.com/bookmarks.html allows you to automate the process of exporting Crystal reports to pdf and merging them to a single pdf. 
The process can also take care of generating bookmarks (one option is to generate tyhem based on the names of the files merged), adding page numbers, Table of Contents, etc.

The tool has a command line API, so you can call and trigger the processing from your application.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ludek,

Thanks for your quick answer!

I have already considered the first option, but the problem is that these layouts are a bit complex, and each one already has their own subreports and sections that are hidden or shown through formulas results... That is why I disconsidered this option... It would be insane to handle with it.

The option of the customers using some software like PDFCreator to merge the outputs is the only possible in the moment, but it is very boring, and you know that any software final user wants to have the results on a click, they don't want to have any extra work...

And about your tip to look for some API to merge through code the PDFs exported by CR, I think is a good idea, so I will try to find something like that.

Thanks again for your help!

Isis

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Yeah - sorry Isis. BTW.; in "SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.x", you can merge PDF files, but then you're looking at some pretty big $$.

Have a great sunny day

- Ludek

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ido,

I have just accessed this link, and there are many softwares, so I'm gonna search there carefully to find something like you described! It would be wonderful!

I'll return here when I find something that matches my needs, to share the information with someone else that have the same need.

Thanks!!!

Isis

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Ido,

I have read almost all pages from that link, and could not visualize which product would fit my needs: Generate a viewing or PDF file of N merged RPTs from a single user button-click on my application. And this component must be redistributable because my software is commercialized...

Do you use a product like that?

If so, please indicate its name...

Maybe it is not allowed to indicate third-party programs here, so please, if you can, send it to my e-mail (it is in my profile).

Thanks again.

Isis

[ido_millet · Accepted solution]

Sorry, I believe forum rules don't allow me to specify the name of the product.
I don't see an email address in your profile.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

OK...

Put your mouse over my photo besides my message so you can see my e-mail...

Thank you

[ido_millet · Accepted solution]

Not visible to us. Marked as "Private".

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Just to give a feedback...

Unfortunately it is not possible to merge the outputs of CR, so after this discussion and some research, we found a way to achieve our goal of having one only window or PDF file of a report that is composed by many complex RPTs.

We found an ActiveX DLL that merges PDF files, so we are testing it and the results indicate that we are going to buy this component, that is relatively cheap considering the benefits it will bring to my application.

Thanks again for all help.

Isis

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Hi Isis

Many thanks for letting us know. Would you mind sharing where you found the Activex dll? I know in some quarters around here they may consider it advertising which is looked down on, but I think I could defend it in this case

I know a lot of people would be very interested in this.

- Ludek

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ludek,

Sure I can share!

This is the link:

http://www.azsdk.com/pdf-split-merge-activex-dll.html

After generating several PDFs through CR export method, with a few simple lines of code I can merge them into one PDF file using this component.

It is not the perfect solution (I wish CR could do it), but will give a good result to the user.

Regards,

Isis