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Save Crystal Report as PDF with text preserved

Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:44 pm
by nhiga
Hi,

I'm currently trying to render and then save a crystal report as a PDF. For part of our workflow, we want to be able to parse text from the saved crystal report PDF to get some values from the report that is uploaded to this part of the workflow. However, when we render a Crystal Report from the ProTrust reports section and then print to save it as a PDF, the PDF seems to render as an image rather than as text. This makes it so our pdf text parser does not see any text.

We don't have this problem when saving a ReadyDoc to PDF, but SoftPro Crystal Reports do not have a "save" option, only printing and then using that to print to PDF. Additionally, when using the "preview" option, text can be selected. It's only when printing to PDF does it become an image, and therefore text can't be selected.

Is there a way to save a crystal report's results as a PDF and have its text be preserved for parsing?

Thanks.

Re: Save Crystal Report as PDF with text preserved

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:59 am
by Lisa Ennis
Instead of print to a PDF print driver, does your workflow allow you to use Export instead? When exporting you have the option to Export as PDF, Word, XML and Excel.

Re: Save Crystal Report as PDF with text preserved

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2020 4:42 pm
by nhiga
Is that an option that has to be enabled somewhere? When I navigate to ProTrust > Reports and then right click on a report, the only options I see are preview (same as double clicking), email, and print. Preview is the option that lets me select text within SoftPro's own preview software, and Ctrl+P lets me print from the preview. Is there an Export shortcut?

Re: Save Crystal Report as PDF with text preserved

Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2020 8:52 am
by Lisa Ennis
Render the report as normal, and then "ALT-f" opens the File Options menu. From there you can choose to export the report. It is the upper most left button on the menu bar with the SoftPro house.
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2020-09-08_8-35-42.jpg (149.69 KiB) Viewed 2952 times

Re: Save Crystal Report as PDF with text preserved

Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2020 10:03 pm
by nhiga
Thank you! This is what we were looking for.