exporting to pdf

[palpet]

i'm having a weird problem. i have a vb app which generates a crystal report. when i use it on my computer, there's an export button on the report (right next to the print button), which gives me a list of formats that i could export to, one being pdf. i need to have that option for all my computers, but on the rest of the computers one of two things happen when i click the export button. one, it does't do anytjing, no list nothing. and two it gives a list of formats but pdf is not one of them. anyone know how i could make the report capable of exporting to pdf format on all my computers? thanks in advance for any replies.

Peter

 

[synapsevampire]

This is version dependent, but it sounds like you don't have the correct DLL's registered on the clients.

Here are some related articles, otherwise, please post some specifics, such as versions.

http://support.crystaldecisions.com/library/kbase/articles/c2010117.asp

http://support.crystaldecisions.com/library/kbase/articles/c2009174.asp

-k

 

[palpet]

I'm using Crystal 8.5. the report reads fields from a ttx file, and then pass it a recordset. i made sure to register the 2 dll's mentioned in the first link, on the clients machine and still nothing. i click the export button and nothing happens. any ideas?

 

[synapsevampire]

Sorry, I'm stumped, it sure sounds like a DLL registration problem.

Perhaps if you remove (unregister) and then register the DLL's it will work.

-k

 

[SurfingGecko]

Assuming you are using CR 8.5 or 9 here. v8 had beta drivers available for a short time, then they were pulled.

The Crystal export drivers are all statically loaded by the component.

This means that when you click the envelope the component will look for recognized dll's. It will list what it sees.

Given this, if you do not see any formats you then know that the application can not see any export drivers on the system (or it only sees some of them for some reason.)

All your export drivers are located [dev machine] in teh winnt\crystal folder

U2F*.dll are your Format drivers
crxf_*.dll are format drivers (new and apply currently to RTF, Word, XL, PDF)
U2D*.dll are the destination drivers


The above should be self explanitory by looking at the names.

Another thing I see often is misplacing these files on the client machines. As a result the app can not find them.

Remember you dev machine has the files in the default location and the component knows where to find them. The client does not have this luxury.

Depending on how your app installs, you may want to drop these files in the system32 folder. This is a natural pathing location and the component should pick them up from here.

There is also one other obscure thing I have run into, although rarely. There is [apparently] an OS limit of 64 statically loaded dll's. Anything loading after this will simply not load.

Crystal has a tool on their site that you can use to see exaclty what files your app has loaded a given time. It is pretty handy and may help you out.

http://support.crystaldecisions.com/communityCS/FilesAndUpdates/modules.zip.asp

**If you use this you will see where the export drivers are loading from and them look to see if the PDF file is in the same location.

***PDF export (and any crxf_*.dll) has a dependency on exportmodeller.dll an crtslv.dll.



Cheers,

SurfingGecko

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com

Home of Crystal Ease

 

[palpet]

ok i've made some progress here, but still not done. i've copied my whole c:\windows\crystal folder to the client machine and I'm getting a dropdown on file formats to export to. so that's working, problem is adobe acrobat doesn't show on the clients machine still. i used modules tool and noticed that the only relative differences is crxf_*.dll. they're not being loaded on the clients machine. You said "and any crxf_*.dll has a dependency on exportmodeller.dll an crtslv.dll" what exactly does that mean? i don't see exportmodeller.dll or crtslv.dll when i run modules. any ideas why the clients machine isnt using the crxf_*.dll's?

 

[SurfingGecko]

The crxf_ prefixed drivers are new to v8.5+ and are procssed through the exportmodeller.dll (which is dependant on crtslv.dll). Both of these need to be registered.

These files should not have a bearing on the crxf_ files being loaded, but it might. Not a machine to test this right now.

As a test you could try renaming some of the U2f dll's to .old then see what loads. If you happen to see the crxf_ files listing, then it would be safe to say that your app is loading more than the inherent limit of 64 statically loaded dll's.



Cheers,

SurfingGecko

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com

Home of Crystal Ease

 

[chelseatech]

You also need ATL (activeX Template Libary) version 3.0 or better.

Check the ATL.DLL file in Windows system and see what version it is.

Editor and Publisher of Crystal Clear

http://www.chelseatech.co.nz/pubs.htm