Hey all,

I'm wondering if its possible to generate a crystal report from a dataset and save as a PDF file. I don't want to display Crystal Reports in the browser - want it all done in the background....just want to create the report from the dataset and save it as a PDF file to the server. Is this possible? If so, could you provide some examples.

Visual Studio 2008 (.net 3.5) 

Much appreciated.

in this case you can use .net Report Viewer the same can save or render in whatever format you want

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386063.aspx

refer Report Viewer concepts from the above link

WanderingEye this is the code to export the crystal report into PDF file, if u dont want to display the report then u just bind the data to report and make it visible to false and apply this code

private void Button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
MemoryStream oStream; // using System.IO
oStream = (MemoryStream)
report.ExportToStream(
CrystalDecisions.Shared.ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat);
Response.Clear();
Response.Buffer= true;
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.BinaryWrite(oStream.ToArray());
Response.End();
}

Thanks  jevaseelan

Your method appears to save the file to memory....I need to save the file to disk on the server for later use. Any suggestions for that?

Just bumped into another issue....my asp.net webiste is now complaining about the report object: 

Dim rpt as New CrystalReport1 - "Type 'CrystalReport1 is not defined"

I've added the report file (CrystalReport1.rpt) to the website.....I was not having this issue when testing as Windows Forms application. What gives? I've done some searching on the web and have not found a solution for this.

.aspx file contains: 

<%@ Register assembly="CrystalDecisions.Web, Version=10.5.3700.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=692fbea5521e1304" namespace="CrystalDecisions.Web" tagprefix="CR" %>

.aspx.vb contains:

Imports CrystalDecisions.Shared, CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine

Any help woud be greatly appreciated.

So, I'm guessing a way around the second issue would be to create a generic ReportDocument object and point it to the report file? Is there any issues with using this method? My quick little PDF solution is turning out not to be so quick :>)

For example:

Dim doc as ReportDocument

Dim FileName as String = Server.MapPath("MyReprt.rpt")

doc.Load(fileName)

Still need assistance with saving the file - Thanks!

Okay, figured out the file part. Here's the code in case anyone needs it. I'm going to post more than just the export (to pdf) portion as I know there are also issues with Crystal prompting for username/password when opening the DataSet. I am not having that issue with this code. Hopefully I can save someone the time I have spent on this. This uses the a strongly typed DataSet...I believe they call this the "push" method.

Now All I need to do is figure out how to format the report so it looks nice

Imports CrystalDecisions.Shared
Imports CrystalDecisions.Reporting
Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.Data
Imports System.IO

Partial Class _Default
    Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
    Dim doc As New ReportDocument

Public Sub CreatePDF(ByVal formid As String)
        Dim myConnection As SqlConnection
        Dim MyCommand As New SqlCommand()
        Dim myDA As New SqlDataAdapter()
        Dim myDS As New MyDataSet() 'The DataSet you created.

        ' Workaround for strongly typed method not working
        Dim fileName As String = Server.MapPath("CrystalReport.rpt") 
        doc.Load(fileName)

        Try

            myConnection = New SqlConnection("Data Source=server;Initial Catalog=DB;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=userid;Password=pass")

            MyCommand.Connection = myConnection
            MyCommand.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM Table WHERE  (FormID = @formid)"
            MyCommand.Parameters.Add(New SqlParameter("@formid", formid))
            MyCommand.CommandType = CommandType.Text
            myDA.SelectCommand = MyCommand

            myDA.Fill(myDS, "MyDataTable")
            doc.SetDataSource(myDS)
            CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = doc
            CrystalReportViewer1.Visible = False

           
        Catch Ex As Exception
        End Try
    End Sub

Protected Sub btnConvert_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnConvert.Click

        Try
            Dim ExpOptions As ExportOptions
            Dim DiskFileDestOpts As New DiskFileDestinationOptions
            Dim FormatTypeOpts As New PdfRtfWordFormatOptions
            DiskFileDestOpts.DiskFileName = "D:\Temp\Test.pdf"
            ExpOptions = doc.ExportOptions
            With ExpOptions
                .ExportDestinationType = ExportDestinationType.DiskFile
                .ExportFormatType = ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat
                .DestinationOptions = DiskFileDestOpts
                .FormatOptions = FormatTypeOpts
            End With
            doc.Export()
        Catch Ex As Exception
            MsgBox(Ex.ToString)
        End Try
    End Sub