Printing – All About Reports

When exporting from the Crystal Reports Runtime Engine, some reports will have a smaller font size when exported to pdf. This can also happen when printing a report since browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Edge will first export the report to pdf and then print the pdf file. Internet Explorer can either print using an ActiveX control or by also first exporting to a pdf file. When using the ActiveX control the fonts retain the correct size.

To force the engine to maintain the font size you will need to make a change to the Windows Registry. To make the change open the Registry Editor by typing RegEdit.exe in the Run dialog box.

Once the Registry Editor is open, find the Crystal Reports key using the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeSAP BusinessObjectsCrystal Reports for .NET Framework 4.0Crystal Reports

Most likely you will need to add two new keys. First add a key called Export and then a new key called Pdf if they are not there. The final structure will look like this:

In the Pdf key add a new DWORD called ForceLargerFonts

In the new DWORD, change the value to a 1 and save the value.

Once complete, the new value should look like below:

Close the Registry Editor and test opening a report in Ripplestone and export it to a pdf file.

Printing Crystal Reports from the Scheduler

When trying to send a Crystal Report directly to a printer from the Ripplestone scheduler, you will need to change some settings to allow the scheduler service to have permissions to the printer.

Changing the Login for the Service

By default the Ripplestone scheduler runs as a local system account. This account usually doesn’t have permissions to print to network printers.

To allow the service to have permissions to print, change the Log On to a user that does have permissions. This will require a re-start of the service.

Install the Printer on the Ripplestone Server

To make sure that the server has the correct driver you will need to install the printer on the Ripplestone server.

By installing the printer, you should also get the printer to display in the drop down list of available printers. If the printer doesn’t display in the list you can type in into test box to the right of the dropdown.

Make the Printer the default printer

If the Crystal Report has the No Printer option selected on the Page Setup dialog box, then the printer on the Ripplestone server will need to be selected as the default printer.

If you cannot make the printer the default printer, then the No Printer option will need to be un-checked and the report will need to be re-published to Ripplestone. Once the report has been re-published it can be printed to any printer. This seems to be a limitation within the Crystal Reports Runtime Engine.