Merge Reports

Borrisholt

Hi

I have 2 reports, lets call them Report1 and Report2

Is it possible to merge those two report into 1 PDF file? I can not put them into one designer since I need 3 copies of Report1 and two copies of Report2?

nicocizik

Hi Jens,

It is possible to merge multiple reports into a single file using the built-in Device.StartPrintJob and Device.EndPrintJob properties. See the following article for more information and an example.

http://rbwiki.digital-metaphors.com/output/pdf/how-to-merge-multiple-reports-into-one-pdf/

Borrisholt

Hi Nico

That worked very well. Thank You for that.

Is it possible to have 3 copies of the first report and 2 copies of the second report in the same PDF.

nicocizik

Hi Jens,

This can be done by creating loops around the PrintToDevices calls (or perhaps creating a sub routine to handle it more elegantly). Something like the following.

var
  lPDFDevice: TppPDFDevice;
  lbFirstReport: Boolean;
  liCopies: Integer;
  liIndex: Integer;
begin

  lPDFDevice := TppPDFDevice.Create(nil);

//  lPDFDevice.PDFSettings := ppReport1.PDFSettings;  // optionally assign PDFSettings from report
  lPDFDevice.PDFSettings.OpenPDFFile := True;
  lPDFDevice.FileName := TppFileUtils.GetApplicationFilePath + 'myReport.PDF';

  lPDFDevice.EndPrintJob := False;
  lPDFDevice.Publisher := ppReport1.Publisher;

  liCopies := StrToInt(Edit1.Text);
  lbFirstReport := True;

  for liIndex := 0 to liCopies - 1 do
    begin
      lPDFDevice.Reset;

      if not(lbFirstReport) then
        lPDFDevice.StartPrintJob := False
      else
        lbFirstReport := False;

      ppReport1.PrintToDevices;
    end;

  liCopies := StrToInt(Edit2.Text);

  lPDFDevice.StartPrintJob := False;
  lPDFDevice.Publisher := ppReport2.Publisher;

  for liIndex := 0 to liCopies - 1 do
    begin
      lPDFDevice.Reset;

      if liIndex = liCopies - 1 then
        lPDFDevice.EndPrintJob := True;

      ppReport2.PrintToDevices;
    end;

  lPDFDevice.Free

end;

nicocizik

Here is the more elegant solution I mentioned above .

var
  lPDFDevice: TppPDFDevice;
begin

  lPDFDevice := TppPDFDevice.Create(nil);

//  lPDFDevice.PDFSettings := ppReport1.PDFSettings;  // optionally assign PDFSettings from report
  lPDFDevice.PDFSettings.OpenPDFFile := True;
  lPDFDevice.FileName := TppFileUtils.GetApplicationFilePath + 'myReport.PDF';

  MergeCopies(ppReport1, lPDFDevice, StrToInt(Edit1.Text), True, False);
  MergeCopies(ppReport2, lPDFDevice, StrToInt(Edit2.Text), False, True);

  lPDFDevice.Free

end;

procedure MergeCopies(aReport: TppReport; aFileDevice: TppFileDevice; aCopies: Integer; aFirstReport, aLastReport: Boolean);
var
  liIndex: Integer;
  lbFirstReport: Boolean;
begin

  aFileDevice.StartPrintJob := True;
  aFileDevice.EndPrintJob := False;

  aFileDevice.Publisher := aReport.Publisher;

  lbFirstReport := aFirstReport;

  for liIndex := 0 to aCopies - 1 do
    begin
      aFileDevice.Reset;

      if not(lbFirstReport) then
        aFileDevice.StartPrintJob := False
      else
        lbFirstReport := False;

      if (liIndex = aCopies - 1) and (aLastReport) then
        aFileDevice.EndPrintJob := True;

      aReport.PrintToDevices;

    end;

end;