These enhancements are available in all editions of Crystal Reports, unless specified otherwise.
Set up Report Alerts to notify you when your report data hits a certain target, or to remind users to perform particular tasks. These custom messages, created in Crystal Reports, appear when specified conditions are met by report data. Because Report Alerts are specific to each report, you decide when to use them. And the message is created by you, so it can be specific to your data.
Export your reportsin whole or in partdirectly to the popular Portable Document Format (PDF), and then distribute these reports by email, over the Web, or in print. Alternatively, export report data straight to XML, or take advantage of the new Rich Text Format (RTF) exporting feature, which is based on the Crystal Reports Encapsulated Page Format (EPF).
Note: In addition, Crystal Reports now supports page ranged export to PDF and RTF formats. Also, the performance of the HTML and DHTML export has been greatly improved.
With Crystal Reports' extended data access, you can now report directly off XML data and data stored in ACT2000 and Exchange 2000 (through ADO). Crystal Reports 8.5 also includes Merant 3.6 ODBC driver updates.
Build your own SQL queries with the Crystal SQL Designer, which now supports using native drivers as a data source (MS SQL Server, DB2, Oracle, Informix,
and Sybase).
Note: Merant ODBC drivers, XML data access, and the Crystal SQL Designer are not available in Crystal Reports Standard Edition.
You can now copy entire report objects, including charts and maps, to your Windows clipboard. This allows you to copy the data values from any report and paste them into other applications as bitmap images, text files, metafiles, and so on.
Make large, complex data sets easier to understand than ever by taking advantage of the new ability to create Subtotals, Grand Totals, and Summary fields for hierarchical groups.
Alter report formatting by using new alerting functions in conjunction with Report Alerts. IsAlertEnabled( ), IsAlertTriggered( ), and AlertMessage( ) allow you to create conditional formulas that format report objects whenever the Report Alert's conditions are met.
To increase the options available when you're conditionally formatting cross tabs and OLAP grids, the GridRowColumnValue function has been extended and made more usable.
Customize your default font settings to display fields, field titles, and text objects with fractional point sizes (10.5, 15.5, and so on). Just make the appropriate changes to the Fonts tab of the Options dialog box (available on the File menu).
Explore the enhanced charting performance and improved interfaces when you're creating and formatting charts within your reports.
Select the new "Automatically set chart options" command, and the Chart Expert takes care of the finer details for you, so you can visualize your data faster than ever. You'll also find additional tooltips in both the Chart Expert and the Map Expert.
Find out what type of data resides in each of your database fields by clicking the new Show Field Type button in the Field Explorer.
Show users preview pictures of all your reports by saving a thumbnail image along with each report file. Crystal Reports does this automatically, with all your reports, if you select Save Preview Picture in the default Reporting option tab (File > Options > Reporting).
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