For those of you who do VB development, there are several choices for creating an installation file. The main commercial tools are InstallShield and Wise, but there is also a free tool (donations accepted) called Inno Setup, by Jordan Russell.

For those of you that create VB applications incorporating Crystal Reports, you should check out Inno Setup. One of the main advantages (besides being free) is that you can use a great little script generator for Inno Setup called InnoScript by Randem Systems.  InnoScript isn’t free but is a great deal for $25.

InnoScript is designed for VB developers and generates complete Inno Setup scripts directly from the VB project file. Best if all, InnoScript now provides full and automatic support for Crystal Reports versions 8.5 thru 11(XI). Randem Systems even maintains an archive of the Crystal redistributable files. You can download the correct Merge Modules in an installable MSI format. To quote Will Fastie, a freelance IT management consultant:

“This is a brilliant piece of work that is available nowhere else, at least as far as I know. I’m using this system now. Flawless.”

And thanks to Will for pointing out these tools.

There is a new viewer available from Origin Software and the developer is looking for people to try it and provide feedback. The product is called the Crystal iViewer. All new users get a 45 day free trial of the full version of the software. If you decide not to purchase it after 45 days it, downgrades automatically to the ‘free’ version. This means you lose refresh capability and a few other features. Along with the ability to run reports without Crystal Reports installed you can also: Continue Reading »
New free viewer looking for user feedback

As of March, Logicity 1.6 is available. Logicity is a combined viewer and scheduler. It now features CR 2008 compatibility. Logicity has a free version and a paid (supported) version.

As of July, DataLink Viewer 2008 is available.  DataLink Viewer now features CR 2008 compatibility

CR Chart 3.5 is now available.  CR Chart enhances the charting capabilities of Crystal Reports and is made by the folks who create the charting feature for Crystal Reports.  CR Chart 3.5 is CR 2008 compatible and has 30 new macro features to enhance your charts.

As of June Easy View 2.0 is available.  Easy view is a combined viewer and scheduler.  It now supports CRXI along wth several other improvements. It runs $39 for a single copy.

See my LINKS page for more info on these products.

Every once in a while I have found that Exporting from Crystal Reports to PDF doesn’t look as good as the printout. In those cases I might not use the Crystal built in Export function, but instead will use one of the free PDF printer drivers that are available. My current favorites are PDF Creator and Cute PDF.

These tools, once installed, behave like a new printer on your computer. You select this faux printer and print the report as you normally would. It converts the output of the report (or document or spreadsheet) into a PDF file. PDF Creator is open source and works with all Microsoft operating systems except for Vista. Cute PDF is free but is not open source. I use it currently on Vista.

To install Cute PDF you must download both the writer and the converter on the left of the page.

If any of you are considering migrating from a Crystal Reports/Business Objects based platform to the one provided by Actuate, you might find this link interesting. There are some comparative white papers there (lengthy registration required). I haven’t taken the time to request them yet so if anyone does and wants to provide some feedback that would be great.

I have had 3 customers (so far) who have called me to fix their Crystal Reports for PeachTree 2008. These are reports that worked fine under previous versions of PeachTree but ‘break’ when run against 2008. And in 2 of the 3 cases the customer had been assured by PeachTree sales that the upgrade would not affect custom reports. That might be true as long as you aren’t using any balances from the CHART table or the billing address from the Customer table.

All of the balance fields in the CHART table have been renamed although the number of fields and their order seems to be exactly the same. Also the CUSTOMER table has lost the billing address fields which have been moved to another table.

If you need help with custom reports for PeachTree 2008, or any other version, give me a call.

One of my most visited pages is my list of third party products and many of you are either using them or have tried them. In January three of these vendors released upgrades that you should be aware of: Continue Reading »
Recent upgrades available for popular third party utilities

SaberLogic of Wadsworth, OH has developed a new Crystal Reports viewer. It allows reports to be refreshed, scheduled, exported, printed and even sent out via Email. It is called Logicity and is compatible with all versions of Crystal from 8.5 through XI. They have released both a free version and a PRO ($45) version. The free version has most of the capabilities of the PRO version and doesn’t have any ads, SPAM or spyware.

The PRO version comes with installation support and adds features like user logging, and password protection for reports. A site license (for very large installs) is available for $4,500. If you decide to purchase Pro before the end of the year you can get a 10% discount by using my discount code, which is CRU (as in the Crystal Reports Underground).

If you decide to try it and find anything you like or don’t like, please let me know. And if you purchase the PRO version don’t forget to claim your discount.

Those of you who have worked with subreports know that you can pass a value from the subreport to the main report and back again. But have you ever needed to create a value in one report and use that value in a completely different report? Or maybe store a value from a monthly report to use in next month’s report? Here are 2 ways to accomplish this using 3rd Party dll files: Continue Reading »
Store a value today and use it in a different report tomorrow

Many of my customers use Crystal Reports to print checks. This can be a tricky endeavor, especially aligning the report output with the check stock.

One solution is to incorporate all of the check stock information into the report itself and then to print the check on “blank” security check stock paper. Printing the static lines, boxes and text is pretty straightforward but one part of the check keeps most people from ever trying this…the MICR characters, (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition). That is the Continue Reading »
Free MICR font (Turn blank security paper into check stock)