Crystal Reports
How to Connect Crystal Reports 2020 to an Access Database
The last couple of versions of Crystal Reports, 2016 and 2020, have seen a significant change in regard to connecting to data sources. Specifically, the ability to connect to Microsoft Access databases and Excel workbooks has changed. For Crystal Reports 2016 and earlier, the connection …
How to Use the “ToText” Function in Crystal Reports
In this Crystal Reports tutorial, we’ll look at how to use the “ToText” function to join numerical information with text. When a formula field needs to contain both kinds of information, we have to convert the numbers to text in order to concatenate them. Want …
Using the ISNULL Function in Crystal Reports
The IsNull function in Crystal allows us to deal efficiently with nulls, or empty fields, in a data source. I talked about this in an earlier post. We don’t want to skip partly empty records, in most cases. But if we bring in nulls, we …
How to Work with Nulls in Crystal Reports
Crystal Reports handles nulls, or completely unfilled fields, in a particular way. And it’s very important that anyone using the program understands the details clearly. A null, in Crystal’s view, is a database field which never had anything in it, and doesn’t now. A real-life …
How to Export Data from Crystal Reports
We usually have to export data from Crystal Reports, for a couple of reasons. One is, the program normally has to be there to read a Crystal file, so exporting allows others to read something. And unless the report is on a shared drive, it …
How to Indicate Blank Results in Crystal Reports
When we print a report in any database-connected situation, we sometimes get blank results, i.e. nothing to report. But we certainly don’t want to waste paper on such a thing. So how can we let a user know about it without sending more than one …
Using Fields in Text Objects in Crystal Reports
Fields, in Crystal Reports, are the way we bring data from a source into a report. Sometimes, we need to combine the data with text even more directly than placing them side by side. The technique we can use is similar to creating a mail …
How to Set Up Better Charts in Crystal Reports
Crystal Reports is capable of inserting charts almost anywhere the user likes. The choice of type is nearly as wide as in Microsoft Excel. The main difference is, the chart has to be inserted before choosing type, layout specifics, and formatting. Though this can be …
Using Conditional Formatting for Sections in Crystal Reports
When we use conditional formatting, we usually think of it in terms of things like making better sales numbers green and lower numbers red. But we can be more subtle than that in Crystal. A common example is where records are incomplete, or where data …