Crystal reports newbie - be nice

Hi,

I don't know the first thing about Crystal reports so bear with me a sec...

I need to create a report generation "utility" to run on another person's machine who does not have msAccess on it.

a) Can I export an MsAccess application to an .EXE?

If not, then I would want to make my "utility" in VB.

b) Is crystal reports built into VB, or is it a seperate package we must purchase?

c) If it must be purchased, and installed on my developer's machine, does it become a part of Visual Studio?

d) Can you briefly describe what crystal reports is, how to use it and what it is capable of?

Answering my questions with URLs to web sites with answers works great for me too!

Thanks!

Davea) Can I export an MsAccess application to an .EXE?
[/quote
No, as far as I know
[quote
If not, then I would want to make my "utility" in VB.

Yes, and you can have an Mdb as database even if Access is not installed on client machine.

b) Is crystal reports built into VB, or is it a seperate package we
must purchase?

Now, with Visual Studio you get a rather old version for free (V 4.5).
If you want a newer Crytsal Report, you have to purchase.
But you could use also dataEnvironment and Datareport --
not as good as Crystal, but all is related on your requirements...

c) If it must be purchased, and installed on my developer's machine, does it become a part of Visual Studio?

No: it is still a separate environment, but you could reference the
com+ components (=the report engine)

d) Can you briefly describe what crystal reports is, how to use it and what it is capable of?

It is a tool to get a report from data. It helps you in making fine reports, and will make them exportable.
The good part is:
you can make almost everithing in a visual way
The bad one is:
look at the biggest thread (http://www.dev-archive.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24213) inside this forum, and you will see how
many are finding matters in obtainig what they want...|||Thanks for the reply.

I think I want to use crystal reports to create my utility. Now a new question:

How is this _normaly_ done? When you buy CR, does it come with a kind of report builder like an IDE?

Or, is it more popular to drop a CR object on a VB form and then distribute the program.

The reason I ask is cause my gut wants me to distribute a VB app with a CR object on it, but I looked for books on how to do this and it does not seem popular enough to warrant someone making abook about it...

So then, if there is a more popular method of distributing a CR I just want to know more about it to see what I would need to invest in.

Basically to get approval for purchasing something here I have to know exactly what is is (the name of the product) before I can get a quote on the price and then approval on it...

Thanks!

Dave|||some Basic infos:
http://www.vbexplorer.com/VBExplorer/vb_feature/august2000/using_crystal_reports.asp

some code exmple (Vb, Mysql and Crystal report)
http://www.vbmysql.com/samplecode/cr9vbmysql.html

What you may already have:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;193336

Now, As I said it is a lot I do not play with Crystal Report, and my
small knowledge of it is stopped around version 8.0 (while last
version should be 10 or more).
If I remember correctly, installing Crystal should result in habving some more components that you could add to your Vb projects. Those components (Ocx) should help you in managing reports
through Vb.
hope someone else herearound could say a bit more on this...|||Great links, thanks for the help!sql