Crystal Reports 2013 allows me to declare an input parameter that is thousands of characters in length.

Does anyone have any idea why the input text box doesn't size itself to accommodate the number of characters specified by the string length [max minus min]?

Also, why can't a carriage return be handled by the input text box?

A string variable certainly can handle a CR, but as soon as a CR is entered in an input parameter textbox, the parameter screen considers the CR the end of the input.

I just want to allow entry of simple, multiple line text into a string.

I am very surprised to discover this limitation and even read that older versions of Crystal Reports supported multiple line input parameter s.

I appreciate any workarounds that are suggested.

Sure thing.

We are using Crystal Reports to generate letters to clients. Client information [name, address, case info, etc.] is pulled into the letter from the database. The letters have some input parameters where the worker inputs text specific to the client situation, such as the reason that the client's services are being discontinued, etc. Sometimes this might be a paragraph of text. This information is NOT stored in the database.

I do not know of any other way to modify the text of a report/letter. We have tried exporting to editable MS Word but Crystal loses page formatting. We also tried exporting to Rich Text, which does not lose page formatting, but the font and section sizes get screwed up. So our only alternative is to enter the text up front.

Thanks



Edited by statey603 - 09 Jan 2018 at 3:58am

DBlank,

Yes, that is correct.

One way to accomplish what I need would be to store the text that the users need to type in the database and then just pull it into the report, but that requires adding screens to our application.

I do not understand why the Crystal's Input Parameter dialog screen is so inflexible. Ideally I think we optionally should be able to have more control such as change the size of the screen, the size of each input parameter box and most importantly, allow multi-line string input. I can dream..........

Thanks,
Bill

The reports/letters are being created by the development group using Crystal Reports 2013 SP10. These reports reside on a Crystal Reports Server [BI 4.0 SP4].

The users launch the Crystal Reports via 'URL reporting' that is implemented in a Windows application developed using PowerBuilder 12.6.

I tried export to Word but the page formatting is lost. Another Crystal Reports limitation. So, if, for example we have a letter that is more than one page, the page formatting that you see in the viewer is not applied to the Word document and we end up with letterhead on pages we don't want it on, etc.

I tried export to RTF which did not lose the page formatting but the section sizes were essentially locked to the size of the report section text when the report was generated [before manually adding more text]. In order to insert a paragraph of text into a section, I need to manually resize the section and guess what.....the sections below it do not move down on their own. So it means having to move each underlying section, resize all sections that need modified text and then enter the text. It was a formatting nightmare.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the exports change the size of the font too.

I pretty much think I exhausted all of the export options that I could identify.

Perhaps I missed something but I scoured the forums and documentation and those were the only options I could find.

Thanks,
Bill

Edited by statey603 - 09 Jan 2018 at 10:42am