Crystal Reports

Introduction

I seem to be developing (no pun intended) a reputation as something of a Jack of all trades - able to turn my hand to almost any tool in an effective way.

The latest such tool has been Crystal Reports. The experience has been far from joyful. In fact, it has been something of an ordeal.

My complaint is not that Crystal Reports is unable to get the job done, but that it makes the job needlessly tedious and complicated.

With a few simple, but highly significant, improvements the whole process of being a Crystal Reports Developer spectacularly more productive. This is especially the case for enterprise environments where there are hundreds or thousands of reports to manage.

Here is a semi-random list of the most significant drawbacks - and solutions, as I see them at least.

This article is incomplete. There are a whole heap of other things about Crystal Reports that I could mention. I had to stop somewhere though.