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Crystal Reports Tools: Improve Performance While Saving Time and Money

Crystal Reports Solutions: cViewIMAGE vs. Problems

If you have any of the problems shown below,
you need the cViewIMAGE Crystal Reports Image Includer.

If your problem is… You need cViewIMAGE because...
You manually extract and paste images from your database into your Crystal Reports. One problem with this is the images change over time, forcing you to update the report. But there's no easy way to track when the changes occur and when to make the corresponding changes to the report. You need to include images dynamically. cViewIMAGE will give you the power to do this.
Various report recipients have submitted requests along the lines of including images in your reports. But you've tried that and invariably reports go out with images that are out of date or images that don't match the conditional statements in the report. To keep things simple, you've made it a policy that images that are in any way time-sensitive just don't go in reports. You need to include images dynamically. cViewIMAGE will give you the power to do this.
You have contacted BO about including images in your Crystal Report, because your version of CR doesn't allow this. They came back with a proposal for you to upgrade your version of CR. But your accounting department says there's no funding for that. You need to generate that report without incurring the cost of an upgrade just for that one feature. But use cViewIMAGE only if you are running Crystal 8.5 or higher.
Same scenario as above, but the issue isn't funding. The issue is application integration. The accounting software people don't yet support the new version. Integrating CR into an accounting app requires some code, and developers are reluctant to make version-specific changes each time a new CR version comes out. Same solution as above. You need to generate that report without an upgrade that won't "play nice" with your other software. But use cViewIMAGE only if you are running Crystal 8.5 or higher.
You need to include images dynamically. The Crystal Reports tool for this doesn't quite do what you want. cViewIMAGE gives you an expanded "tool chest" of options for including images--in ways more in line with your needs.
You have CR XI, and it does include dynamic images. But your images are different sizes and your reports look like a drunk designed them while half-tanked, any time you include images. With cViewIMAGE, the ImageSize driver includes the image height and width as additional fields. So you can set up templates for different aspect ratios and select them based on those fields.
You have CR XI, but you also have multiple images for each data record. Dynamic Images in CR XI selects only a single image. With cViewIMAGE, having multiple images for each data record is not the show-stopper it is for CR XI. With cViewIMAGE, the ImageFolder driver can select the required images based on a file name wild card.
You have CR XI, but you also have "holes" in the data. That is, for some records, the image file doesn't exist. The results are not pretty. With cViewIMAGE, the outcome is much better. cViewIMAGE has a NULL value if the filename doesn't exist.

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.
 

More About cViewIMAGE

cViewIMAGE lets you dynamically include images in your Crystal report even if they are not stored in a database. It calculates the file + path name from fields in your database without storing images in your database. Make your reports sharper and more powerful. Free 30-day trial.

Give your Crystal Reports the ability to send crystal clear messages, by dynamically including images.

cViewIMAGE allows a developer to design a report that calls images for dynamic inclusion in those reports. To see those images, the clients must also have cViewIMAGE installed. cViewIMAGE enables you to include images in your Crystal report even if they are not stored in a database. Hold the reference to the image e.g. c:\Product Images in your database, instead of the image, and cViewIMAGE will retrieve them from the folder for your Crystal report.

 

  • cViewIMAGE uses a COM data driver to create a recordset you can use in your Crystal Report to include a dynamic image in your report.

  • cViewIMAGE includes a SingleIMAGE driver that takes an image file name and presents it in a recordset to use in your report. This will work well inside a subreport. There is also an ImageFolder driver that will return all the pictures from a folder.
  • cViewIMAGE requires Crystal Reports 8.5 or higher to process the recordset. Yes, it works with CR8.5, 9.0, 10.0, and XI.

You do not need the image to be stored in your database. Your database simply holds the file path to the image, not the image itself.

The advantages are that:

  • Your database is very much smaller than if it were storing images.
  • It's easier to manage your images. Adding, changing and deleting images is simpler if they are stored in a folder rather than held in a database.

    How would you use cViewIMAGE to do it? To put your image of say, your product into your Crystal report, you would create a new connection using cViewIMAGE as well as your normal Product database/file connection. Then write a formula to access the file path reference of the image (e.g. c:\Product Images) from your Product database to point cViewIMAGE to the folder/s where your images are filed. Then place the image in your report along with any other information from your Product database.

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