Crystal Reports: Formatting memo fields as rtf or html files

For example, you may wish to store your customer’s name and contact details in a database field and print it as a Crystal Report heading. However, until Crystal Reports version 8, it was impossible to control formatting of the text within that field--so, the fonts, sizes, and colors you could use were very restricted.

Version 8 has two useful formats available (RTF and HTML). If you are not familiar with either of these then here’s a quick summary:

• RTF is Rich Text Format and is usually available as an output format with most word processors. You can, for example, by copy and paste the formatted text from MS-Word into a database field.
• HTML is Hyper Text Markup Language is the universal format for web documents. So anything you put into a web document can now be included in the contents of a field in a database record.
• The "Text Interpretation" option is available on the "Paragraph Formatting tab". One useful thing to note is that the format can be conditional, so you could use a second field to indicate whether the field is to be interpreted as RTF, HTML or to be left alone. Highly recommended.

If you would like to dynamically include text, you need cViewTEXT.

cViewTEXT lets you dynamically load text into a report. You could use it for a custom disclaimer in the page footer, or to add a custom message. The text source file can be plain text, html, or rich text. If you use HTML or Rich Text, you can then format it using the Text Interpretation feature. Free 30-day trial. Add punch to your Crystal Reports, by including text dynamically.

A properly designed report can use dynamic text inclusoin such that the text displayed depends on the data and the formulas that manipulate the data. This can take your reporting system to a whole new level.
cViewTEXT lets you load dynamic text into a report. You could use it for a custom disclaimer in the page footer, or to add a custom message.

• With cViewTEXT, you can reference a database field with a text file name and include the text from that file in your report.
  
  cViewTEXT uses a COM data driver to process the text in an ADO recordset. The text file can be plain text, html, or rich text. If you use HTML or Rich Text, you can then format it using the Text Interpretation feature.

Why dynamically include text in a report? A specific body of text may change, and it's stored in a database or other location. Examples include product descriptions, weekly message to vendors, tip of the day to distributors, security updates, weather messages, names of contest winners, promotion of the day, and so forth.

Why use cViewTEXT to do it? cViewTEXT offers functionality not available by other means. And no, not with Crystal XI, which has a rudimentary version of this functionality.

The TextFolder driver in cViewTEXT brings in all the pictures from a folder--something XI can't do. cViewTEXT does have functionality which is still not available in Crystal in this form and as far as we are aware, is not planned to be in later versions of Crystal Reports.

So there are still benefits in using cViewTEXT even if you have Crystal XI or Crystal 2008, depending on what you are trying to do.

By using different arguments, you can pick up different cViewTEXT COM drivers which provide different functionality.

Functionality available only in cViewTEXT as far as we are aware:

• cViewTEXT.TextFolder enabling you to import an entire folder of images, providing multiple images which can be based on a wild card.
• cViewTEXT.TextSize enabling you to specify height and width of your image (from cViewTEXT version 4).
• cViewTEXT.ODBCText enabling you to include a set of fields as well as the embedded image (from cViewTEXT version 5).
• The functionality now available in Crystal XI that is similar to other cViewTEXT COM drivers: cViewTEXT.WebImage (from cViewTEXT version 4) and cViewTEXT.SingleTEXT (often used).

This article is copyrighted by Crystalkeen, Mindconnection, and Chelsea Technologies Ltd. It may be freely copied and distributed as long as the original copyright is displayed and no modifications are made to this material. Extracts are permitted. The names Crystal Reports and Seagate Info are trademarks owned by Business Objects.