Wheres the printing!?!?

Question

Wheres the printing!?!?

LeeFAR

SSCarpal Tunnel

Points: 4644
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March 3, 2004 at 6:17 am

#107315

This post is more of a word of caution than anything. Please bare with me.

We finally got SSRS installed this week. I have been waiting two months to get it installed and I eagerly began using it. I love it. The installation is a snap, the database has good info, the report writer is good, and the Report Manager application is cool. I think I found my replacement for the un-named product we currently use. BUT WAIT….. Let’s print a report. While viewing the report in the browser, I looked for a print icon on the navigation bar. Nope! Looked to see if I missed a property on the report. Nope! Dug around in BOL. A-HA!

“To print a report that has been published to a report server, use Report Manager or a browser to open the report that you want to print. After you open the report, you must export it to a format that is designed for print output.”

…

“Printing a report in the default HTML format is not recommended. If your report extends beyond one page, only the first page will be printed. HTML report pages may also include additional page elements that you do not necessarily want to include in a printed report.”

Bummers! Now that I have taken a step back and looked at this, I realize why there is no “direct” way of printing an SRS report. It’s HTML. There is no “viewer” per sue like in other products. But here is my problem with this. SRS reports look fine on the web, they really do. However, even in today’s applications, users still insist on printing out reports. And even in today’s world, users hate more than one step. I can just see it now. “You mean I have to export the report to PDF AND then print it!”

In my mind, there are about three types of “reports”. There is your standard financial, listing, tabular report. Then there is your graph. And then there is your letter, form, type reports. Given the mechanisms SRS gives you to print, it seems to me that the letter and form reports are going to be the ones that suffer the most.

If any of you out there have implemented SRS reports into production, I’m curious to know how your end users like using SRS reports. What ways are you getting around or coping with the exporting to another format to be able to print.

Thanks!

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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Jack Corbett SSC Guru Points: 184394 More actions · Answer 1

I have not done a lot with RS, but a couple of issues I have found are that as you say does not print and that the parameters cannot be setup to use a list or combo box (at least not that I have foiun d in my limited experience), which is how we like to setup our filters. The approach I plan to take is to develop the reports and then hook into the ReportService web service via and ASP.NET page passing in the parameters fromt he filter page. Using this method you could add a parameter for the user to choose if they want to print it or view it and then send it in pdf format if they choos print.

Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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LeeFAR SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4644 More actions · Answer 2

You make a good point Jack. We are going to implement (hopfully) in two different ways. Web apps that will have SRS reports and desktop apps (.NET and VB6.0). I'm currently looking at the following web site that uses the SRS web service.

http://blogs.msdn.com/bryanke/articles/71491.aspx#code

If you remember me, shoot me an email when you find out something!

tymberwyld SSCertifiable Points: 7810 More actions · Answer 3

Keep in mind that I do not have SSRS yet...but, wouldn't it be possible (like Lee Frost says) to maybe override a Method in the WebService (maybe they have some kind of "Render" method) that you could Render a "Print" Hyperlink. When the user clicks on it, it would generate a PDF on the Server, then the Web Client can just Navigate to the PDF and the PDF will open in the Web Browser so they can Print. I am probably over-simplifying this

LeeFAR SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4644 More actions · Answer 4

In my opinion there are three ways of getting to a SRS report. Using the Report Service Manager (MS's ASPX web site), direct URL access (good for application integration), and using the SRS web service (good for application integration). As I'm finding out, for my purposes I need to go with the last two because we will be integrating reports into our ASP.NET and VB.NET applications. If you use URL access, you can of course specify the rendering method of PDF. This works fine. The only part is you must click on IE's pesky "Do you want to Open/Save" dialog. Then you have to wait for Adobe Reader to open. Then print. Most end users will not enjoy this. If you go the web service route (keep in mind I looked at this for a total of two hours), the you can render the report in code, but when your code asks for the report from the web service, it appears to have to be render as an image. As I found out with my test report, it cuts off part of the report. I'm guessing the image rendered is bigger than the page. Also, to print a four page report it takes around a minute to authenticate with the web service, render the report, and print it. This is using the method in the link I posted in my previous post.

As most of us know, there are a 1000 ways of doing something. I'm putting my comments out here for us to discuss and maybe come up with solutions.

Thanks all who are replying.

Ferguson SSCertifiable Points: 5837 More actions · Answer 5

I haven't experimented a lot but what's wrong with PDF?

The viewer is free and ubiquitous, and at least in all cases I've tried in the past the printout is exactly the same as the image.

Excel is also a good choice if the user might want to customize the output format as well, or if it is too wide for a page (as opposed to just too long).

I'm not trying to let them off the hook, handling printout better would have been nice (like a render directly to native Windows print intermediate format so any driver could print). But I'm wondering if this is a real roadblock to using it?

LeeFAR SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4644 More actions · Answer 6

Ferguson, I agree with you that PDF is not bad in my opinion, but when you have users that are use to printing a document out by simply clicking on one button and out comes the report, then jumping through a couple of hoops will not be well accepted. I know it sounds crazy, but it is reality. Thanks for your comment.