Crystal Reports in the Real WorldHTML Preview

Mature report designers know that to ensure end-user happiness and to deploy reports with absolute confidence of expected results, it is critical to preview the report in the desired distribution format. Because many reports are distributed through the Web and a DHTML viewer, Business Objects has added a new productivity feature in XI called HTML Preview.

To see an HTML rendering of a Crystal Report design as it will appear when published to the Web, click the HTML Preview button on the Standard toolbar, or select HTML Preview from the View menu. Unlike the standard Crystal Reports Preview tab, the HTML Preview tab shows a converted format. By calling up both the Preview and the HTML Preview tabs, you can quickly preview your web-distributed copy of the involved report and make rapid adjustments to yield ideal web results.

The Preview HTML feature is available when reports are published to Crystal Reports Server or BusinessObjects Enterprise. In the case of reports that are published to either of these web distribution environments, no configuration is required and the HTML Preview feature works automatically.

The feature is also available for standalone reports if you use the Report Application Sever (RAS) to generate the preview. To enable the feature in this situation, configure the HTML Preview feature under the Smart Tag & HTML Preview tab of the Options dialog box in Crystal Reports. In this tab, you need to specify the involved web server, platform, virtual server URL, and RAS server.