There are various ways you can distribute the reports you designed in Crystal Reports even if you aren’t using Crystal Reports Server or any other Enterprise Servers. Some of the ways are the old standby methods such as PDF and MSWord. These methods work fine, as they definitively meet the needs of the organizations report readers.

Some designers choose to Export the reports to Excel or other applications. There are two methods of exporting to Excel – one has the suffix ‘Data-only’ in the Export box.

This particular Export Format allows the designer to include “Worksheet Functions” to the Export allowing more calculations on the report data. The other Export Format to Excel does not offer that option: it is more like a photograph of the report.

Other Export options include:

• HTML
• ODBC
• Record Style (columns with or without spaces)
• Comma Separated Text
• Tab Separated Text
• Rich Text Format and XML

All of these are accessed through the Export dialog box above under the File Menu.

Aside from the Export, the report designer can assist a user in downloading the Crystal Reports Viewer. This is a free download sent to local machines. When the user wants to view the report, the user opens the Viewer and opens the report in the Viewer. The report is displayed as the designer intended it to be seen. The Viewer can also display any ‘drilldowns’ that were designed into the report, which many other formats cannot.

The last method I will mention here is crystalreports.com. This is a secure report hosting service available at crystalreports.com; for those that simply need to see reports. The user logs into specific URLs to view specific reports within the folders you have created. No need for hard copies or email attachments. This is available with free trial for three named users at above website. It offers several different options, with a monthly structured plan.