Back in my VB6 days reports were simple... they were something you just clicked on from the Add menu... in VS it appears there is Crystal Reports - something similiar I imagine... drag, drop, tie your column to the object... but what about us people who can't afford the whole studio and only have C#... what am I to do? The whole PrintDocument thing... that's a bunch of bull! I came up with a nice class to do line wrapping and page transitions on long sentances... but in reality... it sucks... I'm not going to lie... it gets the job done... but it isn't by far what one could consider professional looking. And to code out drawing boxes around labels, and things like that I know are possible... but when you have a 300 row data table you want to print out dynamically... that becomes pretty hairy... those reports in VB6 and I image VS were great and I miss them, what have you other poor people been doing for database reports? I'd love some input on this!
Reports alternative
- Thread starter bri189a
- Start date
Yes! I know what you mean. I liked the reports in vb 6.0. My company has been spiralling down to bankrupcty for 3 years, so I had to buy my own development tools, when it became part of my responsibilities.
My problem is that my user group wanted something a little more user friendly than crystal reports. They wanted a billion reports which were slightly differant. I could do this but it got too ridicuolus. They did not want to use a report interface to make the report criterias themselves.
Initially, I cam up with my own report the way you did. I did not have the problem with line wrapping just because of my data.
Now I export directly to Excel. I format the output so that it has a professional look. My users are happy because now they can their own sorting/filtering/etc...My reports contain several thousand lines of data and are just too big and the info that the users look for require that user manipulation. Excel worked well.
Data wrapping.....export to Word.
My problem is that my user group wanted something a little more user friendly than crystal reports. They wanted a billion reports which were slightly differant. I could do this but it got too ridicuolus. They did not want to use a report interface to make the report criterias themselves.
Initially, I cam up with my own report the way you did. I did not have the problem with line wrapping just because of my data.
Now I export directly to Excel. I format the output so that it has a professional look. My users are happy because now they can their own sorting/filtering/etc...My reports contain several thousand lines of data and are just too big and the info that the users look for require that user manipulation. Excel worked well.
Data wrapping.....export to Word.
Hey nice to see a reply... oh I already got the export thing going on... after I got past the joys of killing Excel.... small, but significant problem.... not all users have Office... and to be honest, even if they did, I like to have my own reports available, even if they're not used... can't really explain why... a pride thing I think. 
quahog... real quick, I re-read your post and saw you had dc down for location... you've working for a company that has been spiraling downwards for the past 3 years into bankruptcy and made you buy your own dev software?!.... I use to work for a company that has been spiraling downwards for the past 3 years into backruptcy and held employees responsible for doing things out of realistic expectations with no benifit to the employee too before I quit... it was located in Alexandria and HQ were in Fairfax... wonder if it's the same company?!