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Art is meant to disturb, science reassures
 
Braque
Institute of IT Trainers - Freelance Trainer of the Year 2006 & 2009
Liverpool Business Connect Member
  Maximum Impact Solutions Limited - Reporting Solutions, Creating Answers
Reporting Solutions - Creating Answers, Crystal Reports, Dashboarding (Xcelsius) & SQL Reporting Services

Crystal Reports, Xcelsius (Dashboarding) and SQL Reporting Services Blog

Welcome to our blog of scribbles and musings designed to share with YOU our insights, knowledge and experience from training, designing and writing reports using Crystal Reports, SQL Server Reporting Services and Crystal Dashboarding (Xcelsius) for our customers.

Please contact us with any questions, queries and/or issues that may have arisen from your use of Crystal Reports, SQL Reporting Services and/or Crystal Xcelsius in response to out blog posts.

We love nothing better to be challenged by something that makes others scratch their heads Feed ME!!!!

20
February

How Do I Create a Weekly Grouped Report in Crystal Reports 2016?

I am currently working on a Crystal Reports 2016 report writing project, where the clients has a number of weekly reports, where their working week starts on a Saturday

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14
February

How Do I Display the Week No in Crystal Reports

A client contacted my recently, where they wanted to display their weekly data by week number

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05
November

How Do Preset Export Options in Crystal Reports 2016?

During a recent Crystal Reports Writing project, the user was running their reports from a 3rd party crystal report viewer to export their reports

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14
October

When is a zero not a zero??????

I have had a number of clients recently contacting me with conditional formulas not behaving as expected, when testing for zeros.

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10
September

Why is my Crystal Reports being displayed unaligned?

A Crystal Reports client contacted us recently with a mis-alignment of their reports on some if their machines, when previewed or exported to PDF

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12
August

A Common Question w.r.t. Crystal Reports

When working with clients who have issues with their Crystal Reports report, the first question I ask is what version was the report written in?

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13
May

How Do I Conditionally Format Cross-tabs in Crystal Reports?

I have had a number of clients ask me the same question recently, "How do I conditionally format cross tabs in Crystal Reports?"

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22
April

A handy tip to copying your Crystal Reports Crosstab values to Microsoft Excel

I was just playing around with moving some Crystal Reports crosstab data, and came across this useful titbit

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04
March

How Do I Add an Extra Blank Page to my Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports training session, one of the delegates asked "How do I add a blank extra page at the end of the report?"

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11
July

How Do I Hide Parameters in a Crystal Reports 3rd Party Viewer

A client contacted me asking "How do I hide parameters in a Crystal Reports 3rd Party viewer?"

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15
January

How Do I Create a Cross Tab Ratio Calculation in Crystal Reports XI

During a recent consultancy a client asked "How Do I calculate a ratio of two summary fields in cross-tabs"?

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19
December

How Do I Quickly Select Multiple Crystal Report Objects, except Lines and Boxes?

I a currently in the middle of writing a beast of a Crystal Report, with multiple fields, boxes and lines, in multiple sections, and needed a way of efficiently selecting these objects.

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17
October

How Do I Sort a Memo Field in Crystal Reports?

During a recent consultancy, a client asked "How does I sort a memo field?"

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06
July

First and Last Days of Time Periods in Crystal Reports

Here's just a quick blog post for calculating the start and end dates of calendar periods in Crystal Reports

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09
June

How Do I Prevent Having Spacing in my Addresses in my Crystal Reports

Most of the queries I seem to be answering recently is issues when designers are creating reports with address fields, with missing data.

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19
May

When is a Carriage Returm not a Carriage Return in Crystal Reports?

I know this sounds like the start of a joke, but I recently found out that not all carriage returns are equal.

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04
April

How Do I Work with Optional Parameters in Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports consultancy, the clients asked "How do they work with the Optional Parameter option?"

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24
March

What's the difference between Current Date and Data Date?

Recently, I have been asked by delegates on my training courses at lot, about the difference between Current Date and Data Date.

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13
February

What's this ExtractString Function in Crystal Reports?

So I was just playing a Crystal Reports over the weekend, like you do, and I came across this function ExtractString

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04
January

How Do I Remove the Extra Pages on a Cross Tab Report in Crystal Reports?

When you create a Cross Tab in Crystal Reports, you may notice all the extra pages when run it.

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20
October

An issue with Exporting Crosstab to Excel from Crystal Reports

A client of mine recently contacted me about an issue when then exported a Conditionally Formatted Cross-tab to Excel.

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19
September

How Do I Convert Text to Sentence Case in Crystal Reports? - Amendment

This is a follow up to the blog post if did last year on "How to display a text field with various cases to sentence case?"

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15
August

How Do I Report the Previous Days Data in Crystal Reports?

During a recent training session, on of the deelgates asked, "How Do I return the previous days data in Crystal Reports?

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08
June

How Do I Display a Block Address on One Line in Crystal Reports?

During a recent training session, one of the delegates asked "How do I display the block text of a field on one line?"

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24
May

How Do I Stop Images Scaling

This was a bit of a funny one which had a client scratching their heads "How Do I Stop Images stored in a table scaling in Crystal Reports?"

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13
April

Custom DLLs in Crystal Reports

One of our clients was migrating their Crystal Report 7 to Crystal Reports 2011 while upgrading their SQL Servers, and their custom DLL stopped being recognised.

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13
March

A Question of Rounding

One of my clients contacted me about a rounding issue in Crystal Reports

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13
March

What is the function of CurrentFieldValue in Crystal eports?

During a recent Crystal Reports training session one of the delegates asked "What is the advantage of using the CurrentFieldValue?"

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13
February

How Do I ensure my Conditional Suppression works in Crystal Reports?

During one of my consultancy session, I had a client, whoso conditional suppression formula returned unexpected formatting, when the report ran.

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09
June

How Do I Convert Text to Sentence Case in Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports training session, one of the delegates asked "How to display a text field with various cases to sentence case?"

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01
April

How Do I Display Form Letter Addresses without Spaces in Crystal Reports?

Over the last couple of months, we have had a number of clients asking "How Do I remove the spaces when creating addresses in form letters?"

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04
September

How Do I Change the Font Colour of a Field based on a String it Contains in Crystal Reports 2008?

During a recent Crystal Reports 2008 consultancy project I was asked "How can I change the font colour of a field, if it contained a certain string within it?"

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28
April

How Do I Calculate the time difference of the values of the same field in Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports training session a delegate asked how she could calculate the time difference between the entries of the same field.

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25
June

How Do I Print Picture Metafiles in Crystal Reports Correctly?

Over the last couple of weeks I have had a number of clients asking the same question "How Do I Print Picture Metafiles (*.wmf and *.emf) extension files correctly"? in various versions of Crystal Reports

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06
June

How Do I Display Hours and Minutes in Crystal Reports 2008?

A number of clients have asked me the same question recently, how do I display the difference between two date-times fields, in hours and minutes, in Crystal Reports?

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09
April

How Do I Remove the Image Grey Background in Crystal Reports XI?

During a recent report design consultancy, in preview the images was fine, but when the report was printed the images on the page printed with a grey background.

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19
March

How Do I Extract all the Characters before a Specific Character in a String Field?

During a recent Crystal Reports XI report design project two tables needed to be linked together, where in one table the field only contained the user name, in the second table the field contained the user email address, which consisted of the user name, plus the organisational domain.

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24
January

How Do I Add Text Summary and/orGroup Name Fields without Losing the Drill Down Functionality in Crystal Reports

I have had a number of customers ask me about how they can retain the drill down functionality, when the Group Name fields and/or Summary fields are added to some text, in various versions of Crystal Reports

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08
January

How Do I Remove Duplicate Records in Crystal Reports?

I have had a number of clients with the problem of their datasets returning duplicate records in Crystal Reports.

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12
December

How Do I Create an Index for a Dynamic Parameter in Crystal Reports 2008?

Recently a client had an issue with creating a dynamic parameter based on the Customer Name field returning over 3000 values, and the filtering feature only worked if one was in the correct page.

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30
November

How Do I Display a Number as the Same Number of Characters in Crystal Reports?

Over the last couple of weeks I have had a number of clients asking "How Do I Display a Numerical value in a field as the same number of characters?" in various versions of Crystal Reports

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15
November

How Do I Draw a Box Around Groups in Crystal Reports 2008?

During a number of recent Crystal Reports 2008 training sessions, delegates have asked the same question: "How do I draw a box around the groups of the report in Crystal Reports 2008?"

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01
November

How Do I Display the words N/A for Zero Summary Values in a Cross Tab in Crystal Reports 2008?

Over the last couple of Crystal Reports 2008 training sessions a number of delegates have asked the same question, "How Do I Display the words "N/A" for Zero Summary Values in a Cross Tab?"

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24
October

How Do I Highlight the First x No of Rows in a Grouped Report in Crystal Reports 2008?

Over the last couple of weeks I have been asked a number of times by clients "How Do I Highlight the First x Number of Records in a Group Report in Crystal Reports 2008?"

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11
October

How Do I Change the Database and/or the Table the Report is based on in Crystal Reports 2008?

Over the last couple of weeks I have had a number of clients asking me how they can change the datasource and/or the table that the report is based on without have to start designing the report from scratch in Crystal Reports 2008.

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23
July

How Do I Add jpg Graphics from an Access database in Crystal Reports 2008?

A client recently asked me how do I add the *.jpg graphics that have been stored in an Microsoft Accces 2003 database location field, to my report?

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10
July

How Do I Start the Page Numbering on the Second Page in Crystal Reports?

I have had a number of clients recently ask me "How do I start the page numbering on the second page of the report, displaying Page 1, in Crystal Reports?"

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03
July

How Do I Add Interactive Sorting in Crystal Reports 2008?

Over the last couple of weeks I have had number of clients ask me "How do I apply an interactive sort to reports in Crystal Reports 2008?"

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19
June

How Do I Display the next 3 Months in Crystal Reports XI?

I had a client recently ask me "How do I display the abbreviated names of the next 3 months from a specified date time field in Crystal Reports XI?"

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13
June

How Do I Display the Ordinal of the Date in Crystal Reports XI?

During a recent Crystal Reports XI training session a delegate asked, "How do I display the Date Ordinals in Superscript?"

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06
June

How Do I Extract the First Name from a Contact Field in Crystal Reports XI?

I was asked during a recent training session "How Do I Separate the First Name from the Surname in a Contact Name Field in Crystal Reports XI?"

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28
May

How Do I Highlight the Largest Value in a Cross-tab in Crystal Reports 2008?

Over the last couple of weeks I have been asked by a number of clients "How Do I Highlight the Largest Value in a Crystal Reports 2008 Cross Tab?"

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21
May

How Do I Create a TopN Cross Tab Report in Crystal Reports XI?

During a number of recent Crystal Reports XI training sessions, I have been repeatedly asked "How Do I Create a TopN Cross Tab Report?"

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17
May

How Do I Create a Gradient Shaded Background Report in Crystal Reports 2008?

A client recently asked me I how do I create a gradient shaded background effect to a report, using Crystal Reports 2008?

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14
May

How Do I Suppress a Blank Sub-Report in Crystal Reports 2008?

One of my clients emailed me recently, asking how do I suppress a sub-report that does not return any records, in Crystal Reports 2008?

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08
May

How Do I Return All the Records upto the Previous Friday in Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports XI training session, a delegate asked how does one return of the records upto the previous Friday?

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01
May

How Do I Dynamically Change the Font Size of a Field in Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports 2008 training session a delegate explained that due to the fields having varying sizes there was a need to change the font size based on the length of the data of the field.

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24
April

How Do I Create a Font Shadow Effect in Crystal Reports?

During a workshop session a client asked how do I create the Microsoft Word font shadow effect in Crystal Reports?

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28
February

How Do I Display the Different Currency Symbols in Crystal Reports 2008?

I am currently working with a client, using Crystal Reports 2008, creating international sales reports for their myriad of customers buying from different regions and countries around the world. I was asked how do I display the different currencies of the sales table.

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23
February

The Locate Table Crystal Reports Feature

Recently I have been working on a ERP Crystal Reports 2008 Report Design project, where most of the reports contain a large number of tables. The Locate Table feature of Crystal Reports, was an absolute god send when linking the tables together.

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20
February

How Do I Only Display the Last 2 Records of a Group in Crystal Reports 2008?

During a recent training session a delegate asked how does one only display the last two records for a group?

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23
January

How Do I Plot a Target Value on a Chart in Crystal Reports?

Over the last month I have been asked a number of times how do I plot a target value on a chart in Crystal Reports.

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09
January

How Do I Add a Target Line to a Chart in Crystal Reports 2008?

Over the last month or so I have been asked a number of times how do I add a target line to a chart in Crystal Reports 2008.

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07
November

How Do I use the MOD Function with Hidden or Suppressed Rows of Data in Crystal Reports?

Earlier this year I added a couple of blog posts, about using the MOD function to create a banded report. I had a couple of comments, pointing out that although the formulas were correct it did not take into consideration any hidden or suppressed rows of data, in Crystal Reports.

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03
November

How Do I Get Crystal Reports XI to Display more Dynamic Parameter Values?

A number of clients have recently been asking, when creating dynamic parameters in Crystal Reports XI, how do I display more than the first 1000 values.

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17
October

How Do I Find the No. Times a Character Appears in a String Field in Crystal Reports?

I was recently asked, how do I find the number of times a character appears in a string field in Crystal Reports XI?

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10
October

How Do I Create a UK VAT Custom Function in Crystal Reports?

During a recent training session, I was asked by one of the delegates, how do I create a custom function, that calculates the VAT rates for the UK, in Crystal Reports 2008.

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04
October

How Do I Extract the File Name from the Path in Crystal Reports XI?

A client recently asked me how do I extract the filename from the path, in the filename special field in Crystal Reports XI?

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29
September

How Do I Combine Records from Two Separate Tables in Crystal Reports?

I was recently asked by a client how do I combine records from two separate tables to make a single dataset in Crystal Reports?

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12
September

How Do I Calculate the Week Commencing Date from the previous year ago in Crystal Reports?

I was recently asked during a Crystal Reports XI training session, how do I calculate the week commencing date for the same date from the previous year?

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02
August

How Do I Display the Description Field of a Dynamic Parameter in Crystal Reports?

Over the last couple of weeks I have been asked a number times how do I display the description field values of the selected dynamic parameter field in Crystal Reports?

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01
August

How Do I Calculate the No. of Working Day Between 2 Dates in Crystal Reports?

During a recent crystal reports XI training session, one of the delegates asked, how do I calculate the number of working days between two dates.

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28
July

How Do I Display a Field with a Fixed Number of Characters in Crystal Reports?

A client recently asked me how do I display a field with a fixed number of characters, using leading zeros, in Crystal Reports XI.

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04
July

The Things I Wish I could do in Crystal Reports

I absolutely love working and designing reports using Crystal Reports, but sometimes there are times that I wish it had some of the functionality of other report writers and software.

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01
July

How Do I Sort the Numbers in a Text Field in the Correct Order in Crystal Reports??

A client recently asked me how to sort numbers in a text data field correctly in Crystal Reports XI.

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08
June

How Do I Suppress Blank Fields Embedded within Text Objects in Crystal Reports?

I was recently asked How Do I Suppress Blank Fields Embedded within Text Objects in Crystal Reports?

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06
June

How Do I Control the No. Records Per Page in Crystal Reports 2008?

I was recently asked how do I control the number of records printed per page to 50 in Crystal Reports 2008.

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31
May

How Do I Display the Previous Current and Next Month data in Crystal Reports XI?

I was recently asked how do I display the previous, current and next months data, based on a parameter date in Crystal Reports XI.

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09
May

Crystal Reports 2011 has been released

The latest version of Crystal Reports 2011, has been realeased by SAP.

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09
May

Trailing the Crystal Reports 2011 Release

After trailing the new release of Crystal Reports, I have to say I am a tad bit disappointed.

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05
May

How Do I Dynamically Change the Fields and Field Positions in Crystal Reports XI?

A client recently asked how does one dynamically change the report fields and their relative field positions on a report in Crystal Reports XI?

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29
April

How Do I Display Additional Text to fields in Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports 2008 training course I was asked how do I display additional text to fields?

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27
April

How Do I Replace the Dashes with Spaces in a field in Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports XI training course I was asked How do I replace the dashes with spaces in the phone field?

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14
April

How Do I Create a Conditionally Formatted Cross Tab in Crystal Reports?

Last week a client asked How Do I Create a Conditionally Formatted Cross Tab in Crystal Reports?

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05
April

How Do I Highlight the Largest Value of a Group in Crystal Reports?

During a recent Crystal Reports XI training session a delegate asked me how do I highlight the largest value within a group?

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29
March

How Do I Control the Line Spacing in Crystal Reports XI?

A client recently asked me How do I control the line spacing in text and memo fields in Crystal Reports XI?

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18
March

I wish Crystal Reports Could .........

Have you ever found yourself say I wish Crystal Reports could....?

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16
March

How Do I use a parameter to control the visibility of an image in Crystal Reports?

A client recently asked How does one use a parameter to display the correct company logo on a standard report in Crystal Reports?

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01
March

How Do I Conditionally Suppress the Results of a Formula in Crystal Reports?

I was recently asked How do I create a formula that calculates the difference, in days, between the order date and delivery date, where any value less than 1 would be hidden, in Crystal Reports?

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14
February

Crystal Reports 2008 Clamp at Bottom of Page

I was asked recently during a Crystal Reports 2008 training session, What does Clamp at Bottom of Page do?

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24
January

How Do I Display Boolean Values using Symbols in Crystal Reports?

A client recently during a Crystal Reports XI training session, asked How do I display boolean values using symbols?

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29
November

How do I Calculate the Current month Start and End Dates in Crystal Reports?

A client recently asked me How do I calculate the start and end date of the current month in Crystal Reports?

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24
November

How Do I Sort the Group Summary in Crystal Reports?

A client recently asked How do I sort a report by the group summary in descending order in Crystal Reports?

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05
November

How Do I Create a Custom Colour Traffic Light System in Crystal Reports?

A client recently asked me How can I get the orange or amber colour, in Crystal Reports?

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25
October

How Do I Display the Groups Last Value in Crystal Reports?

During a recent training session a delegate asked How do I display the last value of the group?

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11
October

Report Bursting Indexes Anyone?

Recently a number of clients have asked me What is Report Bursting Index, in Crystal Reports?

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05
October

How Do I Create a Banded Cross Tab in Crystal Reports 2008?

Last week a client asked How do I create a banded effect on a cross-tab, in Crystal Reports 2008, to make the data easier to read?

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17
August

How Do I Find Out When a Report was Last Run in Crystal Reports?

A client recently asked me How do I find out which reports have not been run or used within a specific timeframe, in Crystal Reports?

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03
August

How Do I Find All the Products that Have Not Generated Sales?

A client recently asked me How do I create an SQL statement that lists all the products that have not generated any sales, that can be used with either Crystal Reports or SQL Server Reporting Services?

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07
July

Crystal Reports Preview Sample Feature

Recently I was delivering a Crystal Reports training session to a client, with a large dataset and a very slow network connection. Rather than returning all the records, it would be better to return just a sample.

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