Format Differences when viewed through ePortfolio 2

[DTRNTR]

I have published several Crystal Reports to our APS but when viewing the report from ePortfolio, the output is slightly different that when viewing the report from Crystal Report Developer. I have executed the report on other Developer's workstations (with CRD) and the output is consistent with mine.

I am using the Active X viewer from ePortfolio and am seeing column headers and footers wrapping to 2nd and 3rd lines. Data Source and data values are good and are returning the proper data. I assume there is some Viewer driver or Page Setup differences between my workstation and the Crystal Server but not sure what to compare. Any Suggestions?

 

[loubu01]

I am having a similar problem. It happens on all the workstations I view the reports from. Printing the report from the web viewer is fine though.

 

[rhinok]

This can be caused by having different printer settings on the Server than on the Development machine. Check out the following technical brief from Crystal Decisions:

http://support.crystaldecisions.com...p?recDnlReq=Record&dnlPath=ce8_no_printer.pdf

 

[SurfingGecko]

rhinok's got your back

Printer settings is/can be a nightmare. Rememeber with the designer you are viewing on the client machine.

With CE your report is being run on the Server by the Page Server. The printer here needs to match very closely to dev.

Different printers view the same font and point size differently.

It isn't inutitive (I've found) to think the printer driver has that much impact, but it does. As an example open the report in the designer go to File >> Printer Setup

Move the dialog to the side, choose No Printer and Apply while watching your report. How much did it change?

Now take the No Printer setting off and Apply. Did the report grow?

An .rpt is an image file and I suspect is one reason why the printer driver is interogated so heavily. I have run into cases where a report would actually blow the designer or application if it has a threashold of images in it. Once a printer was added to the workstation, the report ran like a champ.

We also have a White Paper titled "Printer Dependency" listed on our site

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com/crystal_white_papers.htm

Cheers,

SurfingGecko

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com

Home of Crystal Ease

 

[rhinok]

As an addendum to SurfingGecko's synopsis, the Page Server is only used for on-demand reports. The Crystal Job Server (Report Server) is used for scheduled reports.

I recently ran into a situation where my reports (designed specifically for Paginated Text exporting) appeared very different on CE than they did in Designer - even with the same printer drivers. Every other format exported perfectly.

Turns out there are Printer Permissions issues specific to Win 2K. The Job Server in my case had to be configured to run under a Domain Acct with Local Administrators Access instead of running under the Local System Account. Once I did this, the reports exported fine from CE.

 

[SurfingGecko]

Thanks rhinok, nice addition.

Another confusing thing around account context and the Enteprise servers is that the LocalSystem account has no domain credentials and can not gain access to any network resource.

Like a printer on the machine that John installed. In this case, the Page or Job server would need to run under John's account.

The same is true for datasources of either the ODBC or native flavor. [see "error detected by db dll" or "SQL server not yet opened..."

This is where using a domain/admin account can resolve a lot of issues that are rights related.



Cheers,

SurfingGecko

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com

Home of Crystal Ease

 

[JEX]

Hi guys,

I'm curious regarding the last 2 postings. The Job Server processes scheduled reports but never formats the reports - ie. never creates the EPF files for viewing. It is still the Page Server that does this, even for scheduled instances. Therefore, why do the printer settings on the Job Server have an impact?

cheers...J

 

[SurfingGecko]

epf files are not created for scheduled reports nor is any cache created (big change from the SI days). PS does this for the "on-demand" reporting.

The Job Server does the exact same job as the Page only for scheduled reports and via a JobServerChild (for each report instance). It still has to open the report, connect to database, process records and format the report for output. This requires the printer driver.

One way I think of this and suggest to others is this. A print job to Crystal could be either viewing, exporting, saving. All are being printed to a different medium (screen or disk file)

Hoep that helps some?

Cheers,

SurfingGecko

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com

Home of Crystal Ease