ActiveReports 8 > ActiveReports User Guide > Welcome to ActiveReports 8 > ActiveReports Editions |
ActiveReports 8 is an enhancement of the popular ActiveReports engine and report viewers, plus the powerful Data Dynamics Reports designer. It includes the same power and flexibility of ActiveReports and the same integration with the Visual Studio, plus many added features.
Available in two editions, Standard and Professional, ActiveReports 8 delivers outstanding reporting capabilities. Drop down the sections below to see the features packed into each edition.
Standard Edition Features
The Standard Edition provides a report designer that is fully integrated with the Visual Studio IDE, a report viewer for Windows Forms, and export filters for generating reports in various file formats. The report designer even includes a barcode control with all of the most popular barcode styles, and its own chart control.
Section Reports | Page Reports |
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ActiveReports includes export filters to generate output into many popular formats.
Export formats | Section report | Page report |
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Html: Export reports to HTML, DHTML, or MHT formats, all of which open in a Web browser. | ✓ | ✓ |
Pdf: Export reports to PDF, a portable document format that opens in the Adobe Reader. The PDF export includes the PDF/A support. | ✓ | ✓ |
Rtf: Export reports to RTF, RichText format that opens in Microsoft Word, and is native to WordPad. | ✓ | ✓ |
Doc: Export reports to Word, a format that opens in Microsoft Word. | ✘ | ✓ |
Text: Export reports to TXT, plain text, a format that opens in Notepad or any text editor. Export reports to CSV, comma separated values, a format that you can open in Microsoft Excel. | ✓ | ✓ |
Image: Export reports to BMP, EMF, GIF, JPEG, or PNG image format. | ✘ | ✓ |
Tiff: Export reports to TIFF image format for optical archiving and faxing. | ✓ | ✓ |
Excel: Export reports to formats that open in Microsoft Excel, XLS or XLSX (Excel 2007). | ✓ | ✓ |
Xml: Export reports to XML, a format that opens in a Web browser or delivers data to other applications. | ✘ | ✓ |
Professional Edition Features
The Professional Edition includes all of the features of the Standard Edition and supports the following additional features:
The control is a run-time designer that may be distributed royalty-free. It allows the ActiveReports designer to be hosted in an application and provides end-user report editing capabilities. The control's methods and properties provide easy access for saving and loading report layouts, monitoring and controlling the design environment, and customizing the look and feel to the needs of end users.
Some fonts (for example, Franklin Gothic Medium, Microsoft Sans Serif, most East Asian fonts, etc.) may lose bold style for the PDF output. The Professional Edition provides bold style emulation in the PDF export filter to eliminate this limitation.
Comparison Between Editions
Professional Edition features are disabled or marked with an evaluation banner if you have purchased a Standard Edition license.
Features | Standard | Professional | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Visual Studio Controls | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Web Forms | WebViewer: Use this control to display your reports on the Web. Includes viewer types HTML, PDF, and Flash. | ✘ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Silverlight Viewer: Use this control to display your reports in Silverlight 4 or higher, and for out-of-browser viewing. | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
HTML5 Viewer: Use this Javascript component in web applications to preview reports hosted on ActiveReports 8 Server or ActiveReports 8 Web Service. | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
HTTP Handlers: PDF and HTML (compiled report, RPX file) | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Windows Forms | Viewer: Use this control to offer your users report zoom and preview, multiple tabs for hyperlinks, split-page and multi-page views, a Table of Contents pane, a Thumbnails pane, text searches, and annotations. | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Designer: Use this control to create a royalty-free, custom designer that your end users can use to create and modify their own reports. | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ReportExplorer: Use this control along with the Designer control to provide functionality to your users. | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ToolBox: Use this control along with the Designer control to provide report controls for your users. | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WPF | WPF Viewer: Use this control to display your section and page reports. The WPF Viewer offers the Thumbnails pane, the Parameters pane, the Document map pane, and the Search results pane. | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Web and Windows Forms | HtmlExport: Export reports to HTML, DHTML, or MHT formats that open in a Web browser. | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PdfExport: Export reports to PDF, a portable document format that opens in the Adobe Reader. | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RtfExport: Export reports to RTF, RichText format that opens in Microsoft Word, and is native to WordPad. | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WordExport: Export reports to Word HTML, a format that opens in Microsoft Word. | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TextExport: Export reports to TXT, plain text, a format that opens in Notepad or any text editor. This export filter can also export reports to CSV, comma separated values, a format that you can open in Microsoft Excel. |
✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ImageExport: Export reports to BMP, EMF, GIF, JPEG, TIFF, or PNG image format. Note that you can only export section reports to the TIFF image type. All other image types are for page reports. |
✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
XlsExport: Export reports to formats that open in Microsoft Excel, XLS or XLSX (Excel 2007). | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
XmlExport: Export reports to XML, a format that opens in a Web browser or delivers data to other applications. | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PDF Export Advanced Features | Digital signatures | ✘ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Time stamp | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
EUDC | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Select from Japanese embedded fonts or unembedded fonts | ✘ *1 | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bold | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italic | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Multi Language | ✓ *2 | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PDF/A Support | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Integrated Report Designer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Design Format | Section reports support banded layouts. Page reports support fixed page layouts (FPL) and Continuous Page Layout (CPL). |
✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Script and Code | In section reports, you can add C# or VB code to events behind your code-based reports, or add script to events in the script editor in XML-based reports. In page reports, you can use regular expressions in any property, plus you can add VB.NET methods to the code tab, and call them in your expressions. |
✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Report File Formats | You can save and load page reports in RDLX (extended CPL) format. You can save and load section reports in RPX (report XML) format, and you can compile section reports in CS or VB code formats. |
✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Report Controls |
The BarCode control supports all of the following styles:
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✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Map control allows you to display data against a geographical background on the report. | ✘ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Chart control supports all of the following styles:
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✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other report controls include:
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✓ | ✓ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Styles and Report Settings | You can control page settings, printer settings, global settings such as grid display, grid size, and whether to show a verification dialog when deleting controls. You can specify row count or column count in grids, ruler units, and how many pages to display in previews. | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
External Style Sheets | You can reuse report designer styles by saving and loading style information in external files. | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Others | The designer also offers snaplines, report preview, designer zoom, various formatting settings, control and text alignment settings, Z order settings, unbound fields, and parameters support. | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Input and Output | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Data | Supported data includes: ADO.NET data provider, ADO.NET data class (DataSet, DataTable, DataReader, DataView), Oracle data, XML data, and unbound data | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Printing | You can control the page size, orientation, and margins, as well as specifying bound (double page spread), collating, duplex printing, and paper feed trays. | ✓ | ✓ |
*1: Japanese fonts can only be output as embedded fonts. *2: Cannot handle output of multiple language fonts in a single control. Please refer to Multi-Language PDF for details.