Layout of the Embedded Crystal Reports Designer
When creating a report, you do most of the report design work in the embedded Crystal Reports Designer. The designer is divided into labeled report sections. You can place report objects, such as database fields, formula fields, parameter fields, and running total fields, in the section you would like them to appear.
The embedded Crystal Reports Designer provides a very efficient environment for designing a report because, even though you are working with database data, you are working in a design environment where the data does not need to be refreshed whenever you make changes to the report. When you place a field on the report, the embedded Crystal Reports Designer uses a frame to identify the field on the tab, rather than retrieving the data. Thus, you can add and delete fields and other objects, move them around, and set up complex formulas, without having to wait for the data to be refreshed.
The following diagram shows the embedded Crystal Reports Designer displaying a sample World Sales report.
The Field Explorer and the Crystal Reports Toolbars (buttons on the Toolbar) are part of the embedded Crystal Reports Designer. The report sections in the embedded Crystal Reports Designer show the report objects included in each section.
In the example below, "Report Header a" contains the company's logo, and "Report Header c" contains a chart showing last year's sales by country. The logo and chart are report objects that were dragged onto the design page and formatted. Because the logo and chart are part of the Report Header, they will only appear once in the finished report.
The Field Explorer lists all the fields available for this report. The check marks indicate which fields are currently inserted in the report.
.gif)
In this section:
See Also
-
Explains how to access the embedded Crystal Reports Designer and provides detailed steps on how to design a new report.