Chapter 23. Creating and Using Reports
In this chapter
Despite the high availability of electronic and online information, the “paperless office” remains a fantasy. Printed reports are still an important part of most software systems. In this chapter, we will discuss two different techniques you can use to add report-printing capability to your Visual Basic applications. First, we will look at the Windows forms Printing namespace, which allows you to precisely control low-level printer operations using Visual Basic code. The second half of the chapter covers Crystal Reports, a professional reporting tool included with Visual Studio .NET that allows you to quickly design complex data-driven reports. To demonstrate these techniques, we will create sales reports for a fictitious company that produces toys and food for cats.