Crystal report (or SSRS) flowing text around image

Question

I want to have this layout in Crystal Reports:

How can I do this? If it cant be done

Answer 1

If you want to have multiple columns of static text in Crystal Reports, then you'd just have to get creative with multiple text boxes, i.e. create 2 text boxes side-by-side and add text to each one until it looks right.

If you want to have 2 columns of data, here's how:

1. Keep it simple and start with a blank report.
2. Add your fields of interest to the details section. Resize them so that they only use the first 4 inches of space.
3. Go into your Section Expert->Details and turn on the Format with Multiple Columns option.
4. A new tab will appear called Layout. For this example, let's set the Width to 4 inches and leave the Gaps at 0.
5. Preview your report. If you have enough data in your dataset, it will automatically flood over to the right side of your screen.

It'll take a few minutes of fidgeting with the measurements to get everything looking the way you want. You can even have more than 2 columns if you set the Detail Width small enough.

Also, there is also an option in the Layout menu called "Format Groups with multiple column". It's hard to describe in text, but play with this if you have any grouping levels.

Answer 2

I don't believe this can be done with Crystal Reports. I'm not as familiar with SSRS, but after looking through the field options I don't believe it can be done with it either. In general field locations are set static in reporting solutions.

I think this would be best done with html/css or even XSL. I don't know the scope of the issue, but I'd assume that you should be able to output an html or xml file from your application which could be opened with a web browser. For html you should be able to use the align or even float attributes or text-align in css to accomplish this.

I hope this helps.