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Special Fields in Crystal Reports 10

By David McAmis
Sat, 10 Jan 2004
  

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To start, what is a Special Field? A Special Field is a field that is generated in Crystal Reports that can be used for a specific task. For example, previous versions of Crystal Reports included Special Fields for placing the page number on your report or for placing the print date on your report.

With the introduction of Crystal Reports 10, these Special Fields now include the ability to much more, starting with cross-tabs. Crystal Reports developers have always had a love-hate relationship with cross-tabs. On one hand, they are a great way to display summarized data. On the other hand, they are hard to format and manipulate.

Over the past few versions of Crystal Reports, the cross-tab functionality has been improved to the point where most developers will consider using them in their report, with one exception-- large cross-tabs could spill across to multiple pages, which could not be numbered.

This often left end-users at a quandry when they printed a report and the first page was numbered "1" and then four pages later the fifth page was numbered "2".

The introduction of a new Special Field called "Horizontal Page Number" within Crystal Reports 10 alleviates this problem. You can place this Special Field on your report underneath the cross-tab and it will reflect the correct page numbering, regardless of how many pages the cross-tab may spill over to.

Another introduction to the Special Fields within Crystal Reports are "Current CE User ID" and "Current CE User Name", which can be used to display the current ID and User if you are viewing a report from within Crystal Enterprise. Previously report developers used all sorts of tricks and parameters to try and get the current user name to print on the report. This is a much neater solution and was long overdue.

If you would like to insert one of these Special Fields on to your report, simply select View > Field Explorer and expand the Special Fields node to see a complete list of new and old fields that are available for use.

Applies to: Crystal Reports 10

David McAmis (editor@crystaldevelopersjournal.com) is the editor of Crystal Developers Journal. When not editing CDJ, he works as an enterprise architect and lead developer for a Crystal Decisions Enterprise Partner based in Sydney, Australia.

© Copyright 2006 by Crystal Developers Journal

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Copyright© 2006 | Crystal Developers Journal is an independent publication. It is not owned or controlled by Business Objects. Crystal Developers Journal is the trademark or registered trademark of CXM Media. Crystal Reports, Crystal Analysis, Crystal Enterprise, and Crystal Decisions are the trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects, Inc. All other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.