Re: Anyone use InDesign CS2 AND "Crystal Reports 11"?
Recently, rhys <rhys@xxxxxxxxxx> posted:
> My main clients have purchased Crystal Reports 11 and wish to generate
> table and chart data for financial reports I currently design and
> layout in IDCS2.
>
> My questions are:
>
> 1) Does anyone who currently does this have a "best practices"
> workflow?
>
This will depend on the sophistication of your clients. I can't use the
same workflow for any two of my clients.
> 2) Is there any way for Crystal Reports native files to be imported
> directly into IDCS2, or must all data be exported in either Excel or
> PDF into InDesign?
>
Crystal Reports is a good tool to extract data from a database, but its
formatting capabilities are unsophisticated. It is designed for direct
output, but can also export its content in a number of formats including
Excel and CSV. So, there are two "levels" of work that you could do; if
the usage is rudimentary -- e.g. for price sheets and such -- all work
could be done in Crystal Reports, and directly generate a PDF / HTML /
whatever. For something requiring more sophistication -- e.g. products
catalogs -- export the data in a format that you can import into ID.
> 3) Is there a preferred method of linking placed Excel files in
> InDesign so that changes in formatting or in the data itself in the
> native files can be updated dynamically in the InDesign document?
>
I would probably use one of the other formats and embed formatting control
codess into the output specs for Crystal Reports, but then, I'm a
long-time user of that program (since version 1), and use it in the same
manner that one might use Ventura Database Publisher, InData or other data
extraction tools to populate a formatted document. If you or your client
are not very knowledgable about C.R., the learning curve can be a
non-trivial task, as they used to say.
Hope this helps some.
Regards,
--
Neil Gould
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Terra Tu - www.terratu.com
Technical Graphics & Media
.
