Crystal Reports 2011 - What's New and Different?

There are many new features in Crystal Reports 2011, but here are the top 5 that we think are most relevant to our community.

1. Mixed Orientation Printing

The new version allows the same report to be printed partially in landscape and partially in portrait. Previously, this was accomplished via with two separate reports or other hacks.  Landscape format is shown in the example below.

The drill-down portion of this same report uses portrait orientation.

2. Interactive Report Viewer

This new feature enables users to sort data on the fly using on-report parameter panels and sort controls. Simply select the fields you want to sort by in the Record Sort Expert, then bind text objects on your report to these sort fields.

When the report is run, a sort control appears next to sort fields to allow selection of ascending or descending sort order without needing to refresh data from the data source (see landscape example above).

3. Support for the Barcode Scan Font

Instead of forcing developers to buy barcode fonts, Crystal Reports 2011 now has built-in support for barcodes. Just buy the barcode library you need and use it.

4. Read-Only Viewer Support

Your end users won't be able to modify reports; this is especially important if you are embedding reports in your own third party application.

5. Multilingual Support

The software now supports 22 languages - now you can really go global with your reports.