ActiveReports 12
ActiveReports Editions
ActiveReports 12 > ActiveReports User Guide > Welcome to ActiveReports 12 > ActiveReports Editions

Available in two editions, Standard and Professional, ActiveReports 12 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.

Designer

Report Controls

Section Reports Page Reports/RDL Reports
  • ReportInfo
  • Label
  • Line
  • PageBreak
  • OleObject
  • SubReport
  • Shape
  • Picture
  • RichTextBox with HTML tag support
  • Chart with separate data source
  • Textbox
  • Barcode with standard styles plus RSS and UPC styles
  • Checkbox
  • CrossSectionBox extends from a header section to the related footer section
  • CrossSectionLine extends from a header section to the related footer section
  • Table data region
  • Tablix data region
  • Map data region
  • Chart data region
  • List data region
  • BandedList data region
  • Calendar data region
  • Sparkline data region
  • FormattedText with mail merge capabilities and XHTML + CSS support
  • Bullet Graph
  • BarCode
  • CheckBox
  • TextBox
  • TableOfContents
  • Line
  • Container
  • Shape
  • Image
  • Subreport
  • Overflow Placeholder

Expressions (Page reports/RDL reports)

Interactive Features

Reporting Engine

Windows Forms Report Viewer

HTML5 Viewer

WPF Viewer

Export Filters

ActiveReports includes export filters to generate output into many popular formats.

Export formats Section report Page/RDL report
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.
Rtf: Export reports to RTF, RichText format that opens in Microsoft Word, and is native to WordPad.
Word: Export reports to DOC, 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.
Xml: Export reports to XML, a format that opens in a Web browser or delivers data to other applications.
CSV: Export reports to a CSV file, a form of structured data in plain text. The text in a CSV file is saved as series of values separated by comma.
JSON: Export reports to a JSON file, a text-based data format in which the data is stored in the hierarchical form.

Import Filters

Stand-Alone Applications

Professional Edition Features

The Professional Edition includes all of the features of the Standard Edition and supports the following additional features:

End-User Report Designer

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.

Stand-Alone Applications

ASP.NET Integration

Silverlight Viewer Control

WebViewer Control

HTTP Handlers

Table of Contents Control

Map Control

PdfSignature and TimeStamp Features

Font Linking

Font Fallback

PDF Export

Word Export

Bold Font Emulation (PDF Export Filter)

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
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 12 Server or ActiveReports 12 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.
LayerList: Use this control along with the Designer control to provide Layers functionality to your users.
ReportsLibrary: Use this control to view, add, or hide report parts.
WPF WPF Viewer: Use this control to display your section, page and RDL 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 (.doc): Export reports to DOC (Word HTML), a format that opens in Microsoft Word.
WordExport (.docx): Export reports to DOCX (Office Open XML), a format that opens in any word processing software.
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 and RDL reports.
XlsExport: Export reports to formats that open in Microsoft Excel, XLS or XLSX.
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
Print Presets
Integrated Report Designer
Design Format

Section reports support banded layouts.
Page reports support fixed page layouts.
RDL reports support continuous page layout.

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/RDL 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/RDL reports in RDLX (extended RDL) 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:
ANSI 3 of 9 ANSI Extended 3 of 9 Code 2 of 5 Interleaved 2 of 5
Code 25 Matrix Code 39 Extended Code 39 Code 128 A
Code 128 B Code 128 C Code 128 Auto Code 93
Extended Code 93 MSI PostNet Codabar
EAN-8 EAN-13 UPC-A UPC-E0
UPC-E1 RoMail RM4SCC UCC/EAN-128 QRCode
Code 49 Japanese Postal Pdf417 EAN-128 FNC1
RSS-14 RSS-14 Truncated RSS-14 Stacked MicroPdf417
RSS-14 Stacked Omnidirectional RSS Expanded RSS Expanded Stacked MicroQRCode
BC412 Code_11 ISBN ISMN
ISSN ITF14 MaxiCode Pharmacode
Plessey PZN SSCC_18 Telepen
IntelligentMail IntelligentMailPackage HIBC Code 128 HIBC Code 39
The Map control allows you to display data against a geographical background on the report.

The TableofContents control allows you to display a document map in an organized hierarchy of the report heading levels and labels along with there page numbers, in the body of a report.

The Chart control supports all of the following styles:

  • Common Charts: Area, Bar2D, Bezier, Doughnut/Pie, Line, Scatter, StackedArea, StackedBar, StackedArea100Pct, and StackedBAR110Pct
  • 3D Charts: Area3D, Bar3D, ClusteredBar, Line3D, Doughnut3D/Pie, StackedBar3D, and StackedBar3D100Pct
  • XY Charts: Bubble, BubbleXY, LineXY, and PlotXY
  • Financial Charts: Candle, HiLo, and HiLoOpenClose
  • Composite Charts for following chart types:
    • Column: Plain, Stacked, Percent Stacked
    • Area: Plain, Stacked, Percent Stacked
    • Line: Plain, Smooth
Other report controls include:
Label TextBox CheckBox Picture
Line Shape RichText PageBreak
SubReport ReportInfo CrossSectionLine CrossSectionBox
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
Print You can control the page size, orientation, and margins, as well as specifying bound (double page spread), collating, duplex printing, and paper feed trays.
Import You can import Crystal Reports, MS Access Reports, Excel files, and RPX files using the ActiveReports Import Wizard.

*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.

See Also

Getting Started