Hi there. Does anyone have any experience with either ReportSmith and/or
Crystal Reports? I'd like to generate reports from an application written in
Delphi and that uses Sybase as the database. Of the two (ReportSmith and
Crystal Reports), which is better for generating rather canned reports? Does
ReportSmith have any web-publishing capabilities?

Also, if I'm not mistaken, with Crystal Reports, I can send a run-time version
of the report to anyone. Can I do that with ReportSmith?

As always, any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

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I have used Delphi/Crystal since ver. 4.5 the biggest problems were large
distribution files, updating reports if there were any changes made to the
database, wierd problems like certain machines just wouldn't run it ( and
this also happend in my VB, Crystal 3,4 days. I used to talking with tech
support at least couple times a month. Although they always helped. ) and
so so intergration with Delphi. I use Report Builder now which is much
better if you do Delphi only programs.

Bo

Well considering the fact that even Inprise gave up on ReportSmith...

And Crystal's newest VCL component integrates much better with Delphi
than previous versions, (although this new component is still in Beta I
believe, Crystal will send it to you for the asking). But it is still
not a true object-oriented Delphi based report generator, but rather a
front end to the Crystal report engine.

I strongly recommend downloading a trial version of ReportBuilder Pro
3.5.

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R E P O R T B U I L D E R   W E B  L I N K S
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The press release is available at

http://digital-metaphors.com/news01.html

You can download a trial version from:

http://digital-metaphors.com/prodprodemo1.html

Ordering info is available at

https://secure.unicomp.net/digital-metaphors/

With the trial version you can create reports just as you would with the
registered version, the only limitations are max of 5 pages of output
for any report and if you print to the printer, our company info will
print on the page also.

For a quick look at what ReportBuilder is capable of run the demos:

1. RBuilder Pro\Demos\Reports\Demo.dpr - contains over 70 sample reports
that show the various cabalities of the product. Serves as a great
learning tool also.

2. RBuilder Pro\Demos\EndUser\EndUser.dpr - contains a complete,
professional end-user reporting solution built using our End-User
Reporting Framework.

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R E P O R T B U I L D E R   F E A T U R E S
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We are winning over many converts from QR, Crystal and many others.
Below are a couple quotes from our customers and a short feature table.
Hopefully this will get interested enough to download the trial and see
for yourself.

"I have followed your product since the early Piparti versions.  At that
time, some of the functionality I needed wasn't available.  But to say
the features in ReportBuilder 3.5 blew me awaywould be an
understatement."  J.B.

"I went so far before that I had all my reports done in QR.  We were
about ready to ship (behind schedule) and we were just having to many
strange problems and I was worried about shipping.  So I made a last
minute decision, checked out the report writers and purchased PP.  I was
able to get my reports done very quickly, painlessly, and with less code
and more features!  I know this sounds like a sales pitch, but it really
is true (and I am getting nothing from promoting it)." K.Z.

ReportBuilder Features
---------------
Report Designer                 Full-featured, Office97 compliant

OnePass/TwoPass Report Engine   Instant page generation,
                                incremental caching

Text, Line & Shape Components   Work just like Delphi counterparts

Image Components                Bitmaps and WMFs supported

Rich Text Components            Stretches across pages, great for
                                mail-merge

Memo Components                 Stretches across pages

BarCode Components              Code 128, UPC-A, Code39,
                                Int2of5, EAN-13

SubReports                      Free-form, side-by-side, nested,
                                drill-down

Extensible Components           Create either static or
                                stretchable descendants

Columnar Reports                Spreadsheet-style reports and
                                mailing labels

Full Printer Control            Envelopes, custom-paper sizes,
                                duplex printing

Templates (Report Layouts)      Save report definitions in
                                database fields or files, deploy
                                new reports without recompiling

Precision                       Position components up to 1/1000
                                of a millimeter

International Language Support  11 languages, *all* strings and
                                messages translated

Archive (Native Report Output)  Print reports to stand-alone
                                files, preview later

Text File Output                Comma, tab and fixed length
                                formats supported

Open Data Output                Create support for new file
                                formats

Native Data Access (via BDE)    Access data via Delphi DataSources

Native Text File Access         Access text files directly,
                                compile w/out BDE

Open Data Access                Create your own data access,
                                compile w/out BDE

ActiveX Archive Print Preview   Preview archived reports in an
                                HTML Browser

ReportBuilder Pro Features
--------------------
Everything in ReportBuilder plus:      

End-User Report Designer        Deploy an interface your users
                                already know

End-User Reporting Framework    Allow end-users to manage
                                reports and data

Report Wizard                   Create new reports with a few
                                clicks of the mouse

Query Wizard                    Create new data with a few
                                clicks of the mouse

Good luck!

--
Nard Moseley            mailto:n...@digital-metaphors.com
Digital Metaphors       http://www.digital-metaphors.com