Using Pre Printed Forms in Reporting Services 2005

• Clay Seifert

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  September 7, 2006 at 10:30 am

  #170242

  Hello

  I have a requirement that I want to use reporting service for --- but I can'tseem to get it to work.  I've researched this exhaustively with no luck.

  I'm trying to use reporting services 2005 to print content into pre printedforms.  The building of the report is very simple --- the problem is placing the fields correctly in the designer. The approach that I'm using is a 5 step process as follows:

  1) Scan an image of the form to a gif;

  2) Add it in the designer in an image control;

  3) Send the image control to the back;

  4) Place text controls where the data is to be printed; and

  5) Remove the image from the designer before publishing.

  What I'm experiencing is the image IS NOT being rendered as the original size within the designer so the printing doesn't match the physical forms. No matter what I've tried, I can't solve this issue.  Does anyone know of a solution for this?  

  Thanks in advance.

  Clay Seifert

• Warren Roscoe

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  September 8, 2006 at 9:31 am

  #659372

  Clay,

  I tried this with AdventrueWorks and managed to get something sorted ...

  Create 2 reports, a master and a detail.

  Master report:

  SELECT ContactId FROM Person.Contacts WHERE (whatever ...)

  Add a table to the report, and disply the subreport in one of the rows, using the Contact ID as it's parameter.

  I also sized the table row to be big enough to display the image, but I don't think this is necessary.

  Detail report:

  SELECT FirstName, LastName, ... FROM Person.Contacts WHERE ContactId = @contactId

  Set the BackgroundImage of the Body to the scanned image (sizing is not completely predictable, so you will need to experiment with this.

  Place text boxes of your fields in the location you want them to display.

  You might need to place a dummy (blank) text box down near the bottom of the image to get the whole image to render. I did have a problem with getting the whole thing to display.

  Mine seems to display in the correct places!!

  I have dumped the .RDL files on the web if you would like to use them ...

  regards

  Warren

  p.s. I have placed copies of the two reports at:

  http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wozzaontheweb/downloads.htm

  p.p.s. I got the original idea from:

  http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=97563&SiteID=1

• Clay Seifert

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  September 10, 2006 at 6:06 pm

  #659558

  Warren,

  Thanks for the approach --- it worked much better than using an image control as I was doing.   

  One thing to keep in mind is to make sure that the gif matches exactly to the hard copy form.  There is no easy way to do this other than doing small tweaks to the image; place it on the report as a background image; print a copy of it; then compare it to the original form by lining them up and looking for differences.  Once this is done, the rest is a piece of cake.

  Thanks again for taking the time to help me out.

  Clay