Usability

These enhancements are available in all editions of Seagate Crystal Reports.

Report Creation

Report Designer Enhancements

The report design interface offers much better control over the positioning of report objects with the ability to move, align, resize, copy, and paste multiple objects and new alignment and ruler options. This is especially useful for designing reports for use with printed forms.

Access your data quickly with the Data Explorer

Connecting to data is faster and more intuitive for end users, with the Data Explorer's familiar Explorer-like interface for selecting data sources. Choose from available drivers, sorted by connection types, or access the Favorites folder—which maintains a list of links to the most used data source locations. You are also able to create new connection via ODBC or OLE-DB. View your most recently accessed files through the History folder.

View and modify all fields with the Field Explorer

Now you can insert, edit, or delete fields in the Design and Preview tabs. The Field Explorer provides a list of the database, formula, parameter, group name, running total, and special fields that you can add to your report.

Autosave Reports

Autosaving is now supported. Reports can be saved with a visual preview "snapshot" of the first page.

Use the search function to locate text quickly within reports

In the Preview tab, search for strings in text objects, field objects, subreports, cross-tabs, and OLAP grids.

Create reports faster with new Cross-Tab or OLAP Experts

The OLAP/Cross-Tabs Report Expert has been enhanced to provide 18 predefined grid styles and more control over grid layout, formatting, mapping, and charting. You now have the ability to conditionally format individual rows or columns. Filtering, grouping, and ordering of OLAP dimensions in the Expert has also been enhanced to be easier to use and more flexible.

New support for Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and HTML 4.0 file formats

File export has been enhanced to provide better preservation of formatting and new support for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and HTML 4.0 file formats for more accurate rendering of a report's look and feel.

File Storage

The .rpt file format has been improved to create smaller files with faster compression and more efficient storage of complex reports containing saved data. Version 7 users can also open report files created in Seagate Crystal Reports 8, but some features may not be supported.