Understanding the Importance of Reuse in Reporting

Up to now, you've been creating feature rich reports that are very functional. Most likely, no two of the resulting reports from the previous chapters have a consistent look and feel.

One of the most demanding and time-consuming parts of Report Design is giving all of your reports a consistent look and feel. In many situations, report designers are asked to conform to a corporate standard like letterheads (all page numbers in the bottom right corner, and so on) or perhaps even something as demanding as GAAP or SEC.

In a perfect world that revolves around report designers, less work would be required if you were allowed to focus your efforts on one report and use it as a guide for all other reports that require visual, presentation-focused (yet time-consuming) features. After one report is completed with the appropriate formatting, why not apply its contents and format to other reports? Applying an existing report's layout to other reports is very straightforward with Crystal Reports XI. This is made possible through enhancements to the report template's functionality.