Using Crystal Reports® Viewer

LDMS uses Crystal Reports to generate and display information retrieved from its database. Crystal Reports opens in a new window; you cannot return to using LDMS until you close the Crystal Reports window.

SAP Crystal Reports Viewer



The Crystal Report Viewer is similar to many PDF viewers, with pages and the ability to zoom. Because Crystal Reports is data-aware, however, you have a few more options for exporting data so that you can use it for other purposes. To export from crystal reports, click the ; you can select different export formats from the drop-down at the bottom of the Save As window.

Table 1. Available export file formats for Crystal Reports
Format Extension
Crystal Report rpt
Portable Document Format pdf
Comma separated values csv
Microsoft Excel (97-2003) with headers xls
Microsoft Excel (97-2003) without headers xls
Microsoft Excel (2007+) without headers xlsx
Microsoft Word (97-2003) doc
Editable Microsoft Word rtf
Rich Text rtf
Crystal Reports XML xml
Tab separated text ttx
Warning:

While it is possible to export all reports generated by LDMS, not all of them will export nicely into certain formats (all reports will export just fine into PDF). Some reports will export with formatting issues that would make the data difficult to use in a program like Microsoft Excel®. Reports that are in the category Exportable Reports were specifically designed to be export-friendly. If you need to manipulate and analyze data with an external program, exportable reports should be you first choice.