Report Output Enhancements

PDF

PDF Encryption enables the creator of a PDF document to password protect/encrypt the document as well as limit the user functionality such as printing and copying the document. Encryption can be configure via the Report.PDFSettings.EncryptSettings object. For details see the RBuilder help topic for TppPDFEncryptSettings.

PDF Font subsetting provides efficient font embedding by including only the character glyphs used in the document. This reduces the size of the document tremendously, particulary for fonts containing large numbers of glyphs such as Unicode fonts. Use the PDFSettings.EmedFontoptions to configure font subsettings.

PDF Unicode code support has been added for developers using Delphi 2009 and later. To generate Unicode PDF documents, set PDFSettings.FontEncoding to feUnicode (the default is feAnsi).   

RTF and DOC

Use the RTF and DOC output devices to generate documents that can be opened by applications such as MS Word and Wordpad. Use the Report.RTFSettings object to control the Richtext output. This can vary from limiting the report components that are exported to defining a default font for the richtext document.

By default all report elements are exported including text, rich text, graphics, lines, shapes, barcodes, charts, etc.

Unicode is supported for Delphi 2009 and later. Multi-line text is mapped to multiple rows.

Note that some applications, such as Wordpad, will ignore elements such as lines, shapes, and images. We recommend using more powerful applications such MS Word for complex rich text.

The generated RTF output is built using RTF 1.5 specifications and is compatible with MS Word (97-2007). 

XLS Data and XLS Report

XLS Data

Use the XLS Data device to export report data to an XLS spreadsheet, in a simple data column format.

TppXLSDataDevice exports report data to a simple column format. Only text elements are supported (Label, Variable, DBText, etc.). The page position of elements is not considered. Element formatting such as Font, Color, Border, DisplayFormat,... is honored. The DataType of values, such as integer, decimal, date,... is also honored (i.e. cell data and cell format are separated).

Unicode is supported for Delphi 2009 and later.

By default only detail band elements are exported. To override the default, use the Print To File Setup dialog to define which elements to export or  use the DefaultBands property to specify which bands to export.

The Report.XLSSettings object can be used to configure XLS export options, see the TppXLSSettings help topic for details.

The XLS output conforms to *.xls (97-2003) format, also known as BIFF8.  

XLS Report
Use the XLS Report to export reports to an XLS spreadsheet, honoring element page position.

By default all report elements are exported including text, rich text, graphics, lines, shapes, barcodes, charts, etc.

Unicode is supported for Delphi 2009 and later. Multi-line text is mapped to multiple rows.

The DataType of values, such as integer, currency, decimal, date,... is honored (i.e. cell data and cell format are separated).

Horizontal positions are mapped to column positions. Vertical positions are mapped to rows. Row heights are calculated to optimize positioning. Column widths are fixed. Page breaks are honored. Z-ordering is /not/ honored. All text appears in cells. Lines, Shapes, and Images appear on top of cells and do not honor z-order between them.

The Report.XLSSettings object can be used to configure XLS export options, see the TppXLSSettings help topic for details.

The XLS output conforms to *.xls (97-2003) format, also known as BIFF8.

Image Formats: Bmp, Metafile, Jpeg, Gif, Png, Tif

Use the image export devices to generate each page of a report to a separate image file. And use RB's built-in Email feature to send an email with page images attached.

The following formats are supported:

• Bmp
• Metafile: wmf and emf
• JPEG
• GIF
• Png (Delphi 2009 & later)
• Tif (Delphi 2010 or freeware LibTifDelphi)

Miscellaneous

Report.DefaultFileDeviceType

Defines the default file device to be used when exporting a report to file. When a report is printed, and the AllowPrintToFile and/or AllowPrintToArchive property is set to True, the print dialog will display its Print to File section near the bottom of the form.  This property controls the default value of the combobox displaying the file device names.

Note that this property only affects the combobox if the DeviceType property is set to a non-file device such as "Screen" or "Printer".  If the DeviceType property is set to a file device type, it will take precedence over this property and the print dialog will default to that device.}

FileDevice.DefaultBands

Applies to TextFileDevice, XLSDataDevice

Defaults to [btDetail]. Specifies the default band types to export for the case in which the report elements have not been explicitly configured via the Print to File dialog or the Band and Component Save, SaveNo properties

Printer rendering support for transparent RichText

RB 12 includes an enhancement to work around the limitation of the windows rtf control (RichEd.dll), which cannot render rich text transparently.