Ideas for ediing reports after generation?
Many of my reports are letters where the end users often need to make small
changes to the individual output documents, just before printing. For this
purpose, I need to export the finished reports to some editor, e.g. to
MS-Word.
This is not entirely painless, however.
The best solution I have found this far, is to use the Waler ExtraDevices to
export to RTF, then open the file with Word to allow editing. But the RTF
file leaves a lot to be desired - the report elements are not placed with
precision, line spacing is messy, the file does not distinguish between soft
and hard line shifts, etc.
Besides, not everybody has access to MS-Word.
Export to PDF gives a good looking file, but I do not know any practical way
to let users edit it.
It would be desirable to be able to provide a free, simple editor for the
purpose of editing the final reports, with precision and ideally integrated
with my software. Any ideas are welcome...!
Wordpad is a possibility but it does not seem to preserve any graphics.
Perhaps OpenOffice could be a candidate - anyone tried this combination with
success?
I have RB 7.04 Enterprise so there is the end-user report designer. Perhaps
it could be an idea to feed the finished report back into the designer as a
template containing only static elements...but how?
Best,
Svein O. Mytting
changes to the individual output documents, just before printing. For this
purpose, I need to export the finished reports to some editor, e.g. to
MS-Word.
This is not entirely painless, however.
The best solution I have found this far, is to use the Waler ExtraDevices to
export to RTF, then open the file with Word to allow editing. But the RTF
file leaves a lot to be desired - the report elements are not placed with
precision, line spacing is messy, the file does not distinguish between soft
and hard line shifts, etc.
Besides, not everybody has access to MS-Word.
Export to PDF gives a good looking file, but I do not know any practical way
to let users edit it.
It would be desirable to be able to provide a free, simple editor for the
purpose of editing the final reports, with precision and ideally integrated
with my software. Any ideas are welcome...!
Wordpad is a possibility but it does not seem to preserve any graphics.
Perhaps OpenOffice could be a candidate - anyone tried this combination with
success?
I have RB 7.04 Enterprise so there is the end-user report designer. Perhaps
it could be an idea to feed the finished report back into the designer as a
template containing only static elements...but how?
Best,
Svein O. Mytting
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Unfortunately, the Report Designer does not allow for this type of
operation. My suggestion would be to research finding a small inexpensive
PDF editior to allow your users to make minor alterations to their reports
once they have been generated since as you said below, PDF seems to be the
highest quality output.
--
Regards,
Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com
Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com