exporting to Excel using npviewer

[#1]

I am using CR version 8.5. I installed the npviewer manually on user machines without a full Crystal install.  The viewer displays the report, but we cannot export the report to any file type, especially Excel.

My question is how to export using the npviewer. We are distributing machines with Windows 7 and IE 8.0. However, the export button does not work. Whenever the export button is clicked on, the process starts. It asked where to save the file, what format, etc. Whenever the user selects Excel as the file type, the only option is Excel 5.0. The user then names the file and clicks save. CR acts like it is exporting, but whenever it asks the user if they want to open the file after exporting, nothing happens if they click open the file. Also if they go to the folder where the file was supposed to have been saved, there is no file there.

Does anyone know how to fix this? We really need to have this option.

Thanks for any help.  We are planning on upgrading in September as that will be our new fiscal year, but we need this option for the next couple of months until the upgrade has been done.

[joshua_kuhn]

You're probably missing the export files.  I think CR 8.0/8.5 stored all these export files in the C:\windows\crystal folder.  Look for any file that begins with "crxf_" or "u2f".  For example, excel export used a file called 'u2fxls.dll" or "crxf_xls.dll".  Right around that version it switched from u2f to crxf.  Either way, when you find those files on the CR designer machine, copy them into the /system32 folder on the client machine running npviewer. 

Most of the files names will make sense when you see them.  The u2f file are all format files.  There are also destination files that, I think began with "u2d".  You will need both types, the format and destination.  This has all changed in the newer versions of CR, so some of these names might not be 100% right.

u2fpdf.dll

u2ftext.dll

etc.

[Former Member]

Thanks, Joshua.  I will try this and see if it works.  I will let you know if this works.

[Former Member]

Copied all the dll files from Windows\Crystal to Windows\System32.  I rebooted and tested.  It still does not work.  Banging the ol' head against the wall.  I have googled and searched for an answer to this and still not able to get it to work.

[joshua_kuhn]

What destination are they choosing?  export to application or export to file?  be sure to export it to file, save and see if the file exists in the selected folder before trying to open it. 

Does the viewer work when installed to the a machine where CR8.5 designer is installed?  And has any other CR product version been installed to this user's workstation?  It could be that the npviewer is loading older left over files from a previous install.  Make sure some of these files you moved from /crystal don't exist elsewhere on the same machine... especially a different version.

[Former Member]

I have tried both ways destination wise.  It is not saving a file out to a selected folder.  I have a Windows 7 with IE 8 test machine that I am using for this issue.  There have been no other CR products or different versions installed on it.  I just installed CR8.5 designer on this machine.  I uninstalled the ActiveX viewer as it does not work anyway and installed the npviewer.exe file.  I am back to status quo.  The npviewer allows me to see the data on the report, but will not export the data to any file type or save a file in a folder.

One note, though....when I try to export out again, the file name I named the previous export shows up in the export save window.  In other words, when I try to export a second time out to a My Documents folder, in the export save a file window, there is a filename.xls file there.  I tried to open it from that window, but it came back with an error saying "There was a problem sending the command to the program" and Excel opened but it was all greyed out.  However, if you go to explorer and look for the xls file in the My Documents folder, there is not anything there.

Thanks for your help...you are the only person that has taken a interest in this in the 4 forums I have posted this problem to.  I appreciate your interest in this problem.

[joshua_kuhn]

It sounds like you're getting closer.  If the first filename shows up in the window, what happens when you export a report again to the same folder with the same filename?  Does it ask you to overwrite the file?  If so, the file is there and maybe its just hidden within Windows Explorer?

There are a couple other things that come to mind. For one, you're using Windows 7 and the npviewer was probably only ever supported/tested up to Win2000.  Thats not to say it won't work, but it could easily be something in Win7 not handling the program as it should.  Or maybe something else blocking the file creation like anti-virus or something else.  Can you run the npviewer in compatibility mode?  If you right click on the .exe and choose properties, you should have a 'compatibility' tab.  This might help if its a self running .exe.  But if the npviewer.exe was just the file you used to install the viewer then this may have little effect.

The last thing i can think of is to download a tool called "Process Monitor" from Microsoft and capture which files are getting loaded when you open the viewer and do the export.  You can't really attach a log to the forums so you'd be by yourself looking at whats loaded. But the idea would be to see how far the export file gets in the creation process.  Is the u2ddisk.dll and u2fxls.dll and other export files loaded etc?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645

Other than going this route, you may want to try on a different machine (ie lower version OS).  Or if your copy of win7 is 64bit, maybe compare to a 32bit OS?

[Former Member]

I will try these things over the weekend. 

Again, thanks for your help and have a good one.

[ido_millet]

As an alternative, you may want to consider one of the free/inexpensive 3rd-party Crystal Reports viewers listed at http://kenhamady.com/bookmarks.html