Reading reports designed with Crystal Reports 9 (or higher)

i-net Clear Reports supports the report templates designed with the Crystal Reports 9 (or higher).

If you have installed i-net Clear Reports on the same system like Crystal Reports 9 (or higher) then you can execute your CR 9 (or higher) reports with i-net Clear Reports. That means i-net Clear Reports reads the report template and executes it at runtime. The execution of a CR 9 (or higher) report read by i-net Clear Reports at runtime will take longer than the execution of a CR 9 (or higher) report that was read into i-net Designer or ReportReader.exe and saved into i-net Clear Reports report file format (please see the next two items).

If you have installed the i-net Designer on the same system like Crystal Reports 9 (or higher) then you can read the CR 9 (or higher) report templates with the i-net Designer and save it into i-net Clear Reports report templates:

1. Install the i-net Designer (or higher) on the computer where Crystal Reports 9 (or higher) is installed.
2. Open the CR 9 (or higher) report template (rpt file) with the i-net Designer.
3. Perhaps you have to change the database connection properties (see dialog “Database | Database Configuration”).
4. Save the report template with a new file name.

The i-net Designer use the i-net Clear Reports report file format for the report files (.rpt).
After you have saved the report template with the i-net Designer into a new file you can:

• use the report template with i-net Clear Reports on system(s) without having CR 9 (or higher) installed
• change the report design with the i-net Designer only
• not open the report template with the Crystal Reports Designer.

If you like to use the CR 9 (or higher) report templates with i-net Clear Reports and/or i-net Designer on a system on which Crystal Reports 9 (or higher) is not installed then you need to use at first the report reader tool (ReportReader.exe) on a system on that Crystal Reports 9 (or higher) is installed to save the CR 9 (or higher) reports in the i-net Clear Reports report file format. These report files you can then use with i-net Clear Reports / i-net Designer on a system on which Crystal Reports 9 (or higher) is not installed.
You can read your report template(s) with the report reader tool (ReportReader.exe) without the i-net Designer. With this ReportReader you can read a single rpt file or all rpt files in a directory (including subdirectories) and save them in the i-net Clear Reports report file format.

To do it:

1. Install i-net Designer or i-net Clear Reports as server/standalone application.
2. Copy the ReportReader.exe into a directory on the computer on that Crystal Reports 9 (or higher) is installed (e.g. in a directory that contains the CR 9 (or higher) report templates). You can find the ReportReader.exe in the installation directory of the i-net Designer.
3. Execute the ReportReader.exe on a console to read one or more CR 9 (or higher) reports, e.g.: