Reporting Engine for .NET

[Bcm]

Hey Guys,

Looks like in the near future, I'm going to have to generate paper invoices as an added extra for the system I'm writing.

Any recommendations on a lightweight reporting system for .NET? I've used Crystal before, but it seem like too much of a sledgehammer.

Thanks.
Bm

 

[Chris_H]

Do you want to use an external reporting program or do the reporting from within your own software? What do you use to code with (Visual Studio, Delphi... etc)?

 

[MielieSpoor]

Any recommendations on a lightweight reporting system for .NET? I've used Crystal before, but it seem like too much of a sledgehammer.

I'm in the similar situation and for the moment I am considering using word [because I can] to print my reports. I don't really want to use Crystal as I hate working with it, but if I don't find something better quickly I suppose I'll have to use it.

I can't really afford paying R2000 at the moment for something that would suite me better.

Have a look at DevExpress though.

 

[FarligOpptreden]

So I'm guessing SSRS is out of the question? If all else fails and you can't find something suitable, why not just build your own lightweight report writer, based on the requirements you have?

 

[FarligOpptreden]

I'm in the similar situation and for the moment I am considering using word [because I can] to print my reports. I don't really want to use Crystal as I hate working with it, but if I don't find something better quickly I suppose I'll have to use it.

I can't really afford paying R2000 at the moment for something that would suite me better.

Have a look at DevExpress though.

The problem with using the Office Interop, is you need to have it installed on the computer / server that is going to host / run the application. If you don't kiss your report-writing capabilities good-bye...

On that note though, it's worth looking into OpenXML and to study the syntax of generating .xlsx or .docx files. You should get the hang of all the relationships between the different XML files quite quickly. I wrote a proprietary class to generate a .xlsx file from any DataTable object, without having to resort to Office Interop. All-in-all it took me about a week, so it's worth investing a bit of time into something that could ease your reporting burden in the future... Clients just love the ability to create their own reports on the fly and export it to Excel for further manipulation.

 

[Deenem]

For a quick and dirty, the best way might be to print the invoice yourself.

You need to create a PrintDocument object, add a handler for the PrintPage event, then set the PrintDialog.Document property.

You handler for the PrintPage event will render the invoice to the page.

 

[wesleyfraser]

Might want to check out the following links:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/Open_Door.aspx
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/myneoreportintro.aspx

 

[Bcm]

I'm in the similar situation and for the moment I am considering using word [because I can] to print my reports. I don't really want to use Crystal as I hate working with it, but if I don't find something better quickly I suppose I'll have to use it.

I can't really afford paying R2000 at the moment for something that would suite me better.

Have a look at DevExpress though.

Shot! DevExpress looks exactly like what I'm looking for.

 

[Bcm]

So I'm guessing SSRS is out of the question? If all else fails and you can't find something suitable, why not just build your own lightweight report writer, based on the requirements you have?

Yeah SSRS is out of the question (no MSSQL server in sight) RE: rolling my own: who really has that kind of time? Other clients and projects waiting.

 

[ColinR]

SSRS is absolutely ideal, yeah, slight learning curve, but then you're set.
Handling the printing yourself, becomes a nightmare, very, very quickly.

 

[Bcm]

For a quick and dirty, the best way might be to print the invoice yourself.

You need to create a PrintDocument object, add a handler for the PrintPage event, then set the PrintDialog.Document property.

You handler for the PrintPage event will render the invoice to the page.

Yeah, this works like a charm except that you've still got to dynamically create and format the document before you sent it to the printer.

Cheap and nasty solution that I've used before is to dynamically create a HTML page with tables for formatting and then display it in an embedded browser which they can then print.