External documents

It defines the report code to be printed.

Enter the description of the relevant record.

This long description is used as a title in screens and reports.

It specifies the name of the parameter to be entered.

This grid makes it possible to assign the parameters necessary to print the report. These parameters can have the following characteristics :

  they can be of the start/end type (two values to enter) or of a unique type (a single value)

  they can be according to the cases, chosen from a selection window, or entered as a local menu (choose from a list : in this case, the start of the title can be entered, for instance Y for Yes)

one of the parameters (predefined in the report) normally entered in the form of a range can be further broken down into several ranges. This is useful when a report must be printed, and that a large number of pages exist given the volume that will be generated (in general, this is a question that needs to be asked for reports that exceed 10,000 pages since Crystal Reports does not manage this volume of pagination well). In this case, it is better to define intermediate ranges to "sub-divide" the report. It is the case for instance for the General Ledger (GLGRP) report that can be sub-divided by account. If the sub-division of a report has been defined in the parameter in question (a column exists for that purpose in the report dictionary), a right click gives access, via the Sub-division choice, to an intermediate range entry window. The result of the print request will therefore be a chain of several reports ranging from the start of the first intermediate range, the first intermediate range of the second, etc..... up to the end of range of the last.

It defines the destination of the report that is going to be calculated. If this field is assigned, most of the information of the next boxes is displayed. It should be noted that a destination code corresponds either to a printer, a file, a message, or a file containing the printing flow specified for a given type of printer.

This box is displayed only : it is checked if the printing has been requested in deferred mode via the corresponding button. It can be checked if the report is defined as being printable in deferred mode only.

This field defines the type of issue associated with the report. It can take the following values:

• Preview in this case, a Crystal Reports window will open to display on the screen the print output. It is then possible to send it from the local workstation to a printer, or to a file with various formats.
• Printer in this case, the entry of a printer network path will be required. This printer can be a Windows printer accessible over the local network from the current workstation, or a printer accessible from the print server. In the case where a local printer is used, the network name of the printer can be entered directly in the corresponding column, or the printer can be selected from the selection window (if this selection is not performed by the time the print is launched, the print window will open automatically). But it is also possible to use a print server accessible via the network (this supposes that a print server has been installed). In this case, the network name of the printer and the name or the server are required (in the form of a network server name, followed by a service number if it is not the same : It must be separated from the server by a colon. This will give, for example, a syntax of the type myserver.adonix :1802).
• a message : in this case, it passes locally via Crystal Reports and by the MAPI interface to the default e-mail system of the user, in order to send a message with the report attached. The recipients of the e-mail, the format of the attachment and the text of the e-mail must then be entered. The possible formats are mentioned in a list defined by the local menu 91, and they include among others office formats (data processing and spreadsheet), generic formats ((HTML, ascii, PDF) and a format specific to Crystal Reports.
• a file : A file is then created in an accessible directory on the network from the client workstation. The same format entry as before is required, then a name for the file to be created, in a directory that can be chosen from the normal Windows selection window.
• the printer / file : this defines a print file. Usually created with the extension prn, these files are an exact image of the data sent to the printer, but stored on the hard disk (the format depends on the printer driver being used). This allows, for voluminous prints that will be outsourced, the sending of the file to be printed by the outsource supplier using the suitable driver. The printing of such a file can then be done directly using the Windows commandtypefile.prn>\\server\printer (if file.prnis the resulting file and \\server\printer is the network address of the printer). The name of the file to be created is entered in the file section that follows.

This field, assigned if the print is not started as preview, makes it possible to define the print server to be used to launch a report.

This field is used to define the network name of the printer to which the report is sent.

If the file path is not expressed in absolute terms, an attempt is made to generate the file in the C:\temp folder first, if it exists, otherwise in C:\, or else in the client installation directory if the server is not assigned. If the server is assigned, the file will be generated in the client installation directory.

This is used, in case of a printer output, to give a default value to the number of copies to be performed.

If several copies are requested, and the box is checked, the pages are assembled before printing the next exemplar. Otherwise, each page is repeated. For instance, for the printing of two copies of three pages :

• if this box is checked, the page order will be 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3
• if this box is not checked, the page order will be 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3

It defines the possible formats via the local menu 91. These formats include among others office formats (data processing and spreadsheet), generic formats ((HTML, ascii, PDF) and a format specific to Crystal Reports.

This is used to restrict the pages to be printed between two numbers (if no value is set, all the pages of the report are printed).

When the report can be used in several languages, the language to be used is defined here.