How do I print this (easily?)

[Jonathan Smith]

Hi

In order to make it easier for my colleagues to write their school reports I
thought I might attempt to write a (simple) program.
At the moment I am working mentally through the steps I would have to code
just to make sure that I can do everything before I start. I have come to a
halt with regard to printing them out.

Any software I produce would have to produce a report in the same format as
the one we curently use (they are hand written at the moment on pre printed
forms although some staff use word templates that mimic the official forms).

Each subject is slightly different but in general they are as follows. I
hope you can follow this even if the formatting isn't perfect.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Subject Name

Name........................................ Form......................
Exam Mark................. Median Mark..........

Very Good Good Satisfactory Improvement Needed
Skill 1
Skill 2
Skill 3
Skill 4

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
There are about 20 different subjects and each subject's report is slightly
different. Some do not have marks and hence do not have the line for the
marks (the rest of the report shifts up) and each subject will have
different skills listed and a different number of skills. Some skills occupy
two lines and some only one. The skill section is a table with grid lines
where a tick is placed to indicate the level achieved. Below the tick boxes
is a section for a comment of a few sentences which takes up the rest of the
page size (A5)

This is what I had thought of for the database structure.
Each record would contain the following fields:
Subject Name
Pupil Name
Form
Exam Mark
Median Mark
Skill 1 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 2 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 3 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 4 Level (4 fields - one for each level) I would need a maximum of 10
skills.
Comment

I hope you have grasped what I need. Now the big question - How do I print
it out? Any suggestions?

It would be much neater if I stored a single binary type string for the
skills and used this for storing the skill information. For example reading
from left to right 001010000100 would convert to 3 skills 0010
(satisfactory) 1000 (very good) and 0100 (good). Does this make it harder to
print.

The position of the sections on a page will depend on whether there are any
marks, how many skills there are and which skills take up two lines.

Is this a candidate for Crystal Reports or PrintDocument? (I have vb.net but
only have limited experience)

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. It would greatly help an
already overworked teacher.

Thank you
--
Jonathan Smith
ICT Coordinator
Portsmouth High School
Kent Road
Southsea
Hants

http://www.gdst.net/portsmouthhigh/

[Chris Barber]

XML + XSLT to HTML would be the easiest to my mind but you'd have to
generate the XML from the DB (shouldn't be too hard).
Marrowsoft Xselerator would then be the tool of choice for me to take that
XML and generate HTML (eg to print etc.).

Chris.

"Jonathan Smith" <j.*******@breathe.com> wrote in message
news:%2****************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
Hi

In order to make it easier for my colleagues to write their school reports I
thought I might attempt to write a (simple) program.
At the moment I am working mentally through the steps I would have to code
just to make sure that I can do everything before I start. I have come to a
halt with regard to printing them out.

Any software I produce would have to produce a report in the same format as
the one we curently use (they are hand written at the moment on pre printed
forms although some staff use word templates that mimic the official forms).

Each subject is slightly different but in general they are as follows. I
hope you can follow this even if the formatting isn't perfect.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Subject Name

Name........................................ Form......................
Exam Mark................. Median Mark..........

Very Good Good Satisfactory Improvement Needed
Skill 1
Skill 2
Skill 3
Skill 4

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
There are about 20 different subjects and each subject's report is slightly
different. Some do not have marks and hence do not have the line for the
marks (the rest of the report shifts up) and each subject will have
different skills listed and a different number of skills. Some skills occupy
two lines and some only one. The skill section is a table with grid lines
where a tick is placed to indicate the level achieved. Below the tick boxes
is a section for a comment of a few sentences which takes up the rest of the
page size (A5)

This is what I had thought of for the database structure.
Each record would contain the following fields:
Subject Name
Pupil Name
Form
Exam Mark
Median Mark
Skill 1 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 2 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 3 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 4 Level (4 fields - one for each level) I would need a maximum of 10
skills.
Comment

I hope you have grasped what I need. Now the big question - How do I print
it out? Any suggestions?

It would be much neater if I stored a single binary type string for the
skills and used this for storing the skill information. For example reading
from left to right 001010000100 would convert to 3 skills 0010
(satisfactory) 1000 (very good) and 0100 (good). Does this make it harder to
print.

The position of the sections on a page will depend on whether there are any
marks, how many skills there are and which skills take up two lines.

Is this a candidate for Crystal Reports or PrintDocument? (I have vb.net but
only have limited experience)

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. It would greatly help an
already overworked teacher.

Thank you
--
Jonathan Smith
ICT Coordinator
Portsmouth High School
Kent Road
Southsea
Hants

http://www.gdst.net/portsmouthhigh/

[Dan Brussee]

Although I can think of a couple ways to make the database structure
better and more efficient, your quesiton relates to printing, which
has always been a sore issue.

I think this type of report structure could be handled quite nicely
with some printer calls without the need to resort to a full-blown
report writer. Kind of overkill for something so simple. It depends on
how "exact" the layout needs to be to the existing forms. Are the
forms scanned - in other words, do they need to be machine readable?
Is exact placement a concern?

Dan
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 11:26:39 -0000, "Jonathan Smith"
<j.*******@breathe.com> wrote:

Hi

In order to make it easier for my colleagues to write their school reports I
thought I might attempt to write a (simple) program.
At the moment I am working mentally through the steps I would have to code
just to make sure that I can do everything before I start. I have come to a
halt with regard to printing them out.

Any software I produce would have to produce a report in the same format as
the one we curently use (they are hand written at the moment on pre printed
forms although some staff use word templates that mimic the official forms).

Each subject is slightly different but in general they are as follows. I
hope you can follow this even if the formatting isn't perfect.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Subject Name

Name........................................ Form......................
Exam Mark................. Median Mark..........

Very Good Good Satisfactory Improvement Needed
Skill 1
Skill 2
Skill 3
Skill 4

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
There are about 20 different subjects and each subject's report is slightly
different. Some do not have marks and hence do not have the line for the
marks (the rest of the report shifts up) and each subject will have
different skills listed and a different number of skills. Some skills occupy
two lines and some only one. The skill section is a table with grid lines
where a tick is placed to indicate the level achieved. Below the tick boxes
is a section for a comment of a few sentences which takes up the rest of the
page size (A5)

This is what I had thought of for the database structure.
Each record would contain the following fields:
Subject Name
Pupil Name
Form
Exam Mark
Median Mark
Skill 1 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 2 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 3 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 4 Level (4 fields - one for each level) I would need a maximum of 10
skills.
Comment

I hope you have grasped what I need. Now the big question - How do I print
it out? Any suggestions?

It would be much neater if I stored a single binary type string for the
skills and used this for storing the skill information. For example reading
from left to right 001010000100 would convert to 3 skills 0010
(satisfactory) 1000 (very good) and 0100 (good). Does this make it harder to
print.

The position of the sections on a page will depend on whether there are any
marks, how many skills there are and which skills take up two lines.

Is this a candidate for Crystal Reports or PrintDocument? (I have vb.net but
only have limited experience)

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. It would greatly help an
already overworked teacher.

Thank you

[chris]

this is very much a job for crystal reports...i would sggest
conditionally supressed sections based on the subject for example...if
this is for a school, i would be glad to help in more detail if you would
like. i havent done crystal work in .net, but i have extensive
experience with it in versions 5-8 and some experience with c#

chris
ch******@DontSpamMe-mindspring.com

"Jonathan Smith" <j.*******@breathe.com> wrote in
news:#t**************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl:

Hi

In order to make it easier for my colleagues to write their school
reports I thought I might attempt to write a (simple) program.
At the moment I am working mentally through the steps I would have to
code just to make sure that I can do everything before I start. I have
come to a halt with regard to printing them out.

Any software I produce would have to produce a report in the same
format as the one we curently use (they are hand written at the moment
on pre printed forms although some staff use word templates that mimic
the official forms).

Each subject is slightly different but in general they are as follows.
I hope you can follow this even if the formatting isn't perfect.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- ------
Subject Name

Name........................................
Form...................... Exam Mark.................
Median Mark..........

Very Good Good Satisfactory Improvement Needed
Skill 1
Skill 2
Skill 3
Skill 4

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- ----------
There are about 20 different subjects and each subject's report is
slightly different. Some do not have marks and hence do not have the
line for the marks (the rest of the report shifts up) and each subject
will have different skills listed and a different number of skills.
Some skills occupy two lines and some only one. The skill section is a
table with grid lines where a tick is placed to indicate the level
achieved. Below the tick boxes is a section for a comment of a few
sentences which takes up the rest of the page size (A5)

This is what I had thought of for the database structure.
Each record would contain the following fields:
Subject Name
Pupil Name
Form
Exam Mark
Median Mark
Skill 1 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 2 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 3 Level (4 fields - one for each level)
Skill 4 Level (4 fields - one for each level) I would need a maximum
of 10 skills.
Comment

I hope you have grasped what I need. Now the big question - How do I
print it out? Any suggestions?

It would be much neater if I stored a single binary type string for
the skills and used this for storing the skill information. For
example reading from left to right 001010000100 would convert to 3
skills 0010 (satisfactory) 1000 (very good) and 0100 (good). Does this
make it harder to print.

The position of the sections on a page will depend on whether there
are any marks, how many skills there are and which skills take up two
lines.

Is this a candidate for Crystal Reports or PrintDocument? (I have
vb.net but only have limited experience)

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. It would greatly help
an already overworked teacher.

Thank you
--
Jonathan Smith
ICT Coordinator
Portsmouth High School
Kent Road
Southsea
Hants

http://www.gdst.net/portsmouthhigh/

[Michael Cole]

Jonathan Smith wrote:

Hi

In order to make it easier for my colleagues to write their school
reports I thought I might attempt to write a (simple) program.
At the moment I am working mentally through the steps I would have to
code just to make sure that I can do everything before I start. I
have come to a halt with regard to printing them out.

Personal suggestion - firstly design an Access database (any version) to
hold the data. Design it how you want, without thinking about how it is to
be displayed, for the moment. Concentrate on one thing at a time. Access
is cheap and available, and will be all that you require for the moment.
Don't go overboard yet.

Next, within Access, construct forms for the entering of the data. There
are various Access VBA groups in this news server, and they would be a lot
more relevent than most of the groups that you have sent this to.
Unfortunately, I don't know which group you are reading, or I would have
snipped some of them, but it seems that you are trying to run before you can
crawl. Don't worry, if you need to transfer it to a VB executable later,
you can, but for the moment, learn how to do it using only Access.

Once you have the storage and data entry out of then way, then and only then
should you look at reporting. Now Access does come with some reporting
tools, but I would suggest that you (or the school) look at purchasing and
using Crystal Reports. Seeing as you have addresses this to that group, you
may already have it. Once you get to that stage, post again.

Main point is, don't run before you can walk. This stuff may look easy, but
it isn't. Take it one step at a time, and take your time doing it. If you
are doing this part time, and I am assuming that your regular occupation is
a teacher, which doesn't leave a great deal of spare time, you probably
won't have a finished product for some months. Don't rush it.
--
Regards,

Michael Cole

[Cathy Jones]

As Chris mentioned, you can try any of the reporting tools like
Crystal. If you are looking for cheaper options then you can try
either R&R reports(www.livewarepub.com), Active
Reports(http://www.datadynamics.com) or
Intelliview(www.intelliview.com)

Cathy
"Michael Cole" <mi**********@hansen.com.invalid> wrote in message news:<ei*************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>...

Jonathan Smith wrote:

Hi

In order to make it easier for my colleagues to write their school
reports I thought I might attempt to write a (simple) program.
At the moment I am working mentally through the steps I would have to
code just to make sure that I can do everything before I start. I
have come to a halt with regard to printing them out.

Personal suggestion - firstly design an Access database (any version) to
hold the data. Design it how you want, without thinking about how it is to
be displayed, for the moment. Concentrate on one thing at a time. Access
is cheap and available, and will be all that you require for the moment.
Don't go overboard yet.

Next, within Access, construct forms for the entering of the data. There
are various Access VBA groups in this news server, and they would be a lot
more relevent than most of the groups that you have sent this to.
Unfortunately, I don't know which group you are reading, or I would have
snipped some of them, but it seems that you are trying to run before you can
crawl. Don't worry, if you need to transfer it to a VB executable later,
you can, but for the moment, learn how to do it using only Access.

Once you have the storage and data entry out of then way, then and only then
should you look at reporting. Now Access does come with some reporting
tools, but I would suggest that you (or the school) look at purchasing and
using Crystal Reports. Seeing as you have addresses this to that group, you
may already have it. Once you get to that stage, post again.

Main point is, don't run before you can walk. This stuff may look easy, but
it isn't. Take it one step at a time, and take your time doing it. If you
are doing this part time, and I am assuming that your regular occupation is
a teacher, which doesn't leave a great deal of spare time, you probably
won't have a finished product for some months. Don't rush it.

[Elvin Ng]

crReportDoc = new ReportDocument();
{ ... Your set path, log on, parameters stuffs here ... }
ExportFormatType exportType;
string outputName;
if(radioPDF.Checked)
{
outputName = rptName.Substring(0, rptName.Length - 4) + ".pdf";
exportType = ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat;
}
else if (radioXLS.Checked)
{
outputName = rptName.Substring(0, rptName.Length - 4) + ".xls";
exportType = ExportFormatType.Excel;
}
else
{
outputName = rptName.Substring(0, rptName.Length - 4) + ".doc";
exportType = ExportFormatType.WordForWindows;
}
ExportOptions CrExpOpt;
CrystalDecisions.Shared.DiskFileDestinationOptions DiskOpts = new
CrystalDecisions.Shared.DiskFileDestinationOptions ();
DiskOpts.DiskFileName = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["ReportOutputDir"]
+ outputName;
CrExpOpt = crReportDoc.ExportOptions;
CrExpOpt.DestinationOptions = DiskOpts;
CrExpOpt.ExportDestinationType = ExportDestinationType.DiskFile;
CrExpOpt.ExportFormatType = exportType;
crReportDoc.Export();
{ ... then just redirect to the pdf/xls/doc file ... }

elv
"Cathy Jones" <ca***********@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bc**************************@posting.google.c om...

As Chris mentioned, you can try any of the reporting tools like
Crystal. If you are looking for cheaper options then you can try
either R&R reports(www.livewarepub.com), Active
Reports(http://www.datadynamics.com) or
Intelliview(www.intelliview.com)

Cathy
"Michael Cole" <mi**********@hansen.com.invalid> wrote in message

news:<ei*************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>...

Jonathan Smith wrote:

Hi

In order to make it easier for my colleagues to write their school
reports I thought I might attempt to write a (simple) program.
At the moment I am working mentally through the steps I would have to
code just to make sure that I can do everything before I start. I
have come to a halt with regard to printing them out.

Personal suggestion - firstly design an Access database (any version) to
hold the data. Design it how you want, without thinking about how it is to be displayed, for the moment. Concentrate on one thing at a time. Access is cheap and available, and will be all that you require for the moment.
Don't go overboard yet.

Next, within Access, construct forms for the entering of the data. There are various Access VBA groups in this news server, and they would be a lot more relevent than most of the groups that you have sent this to.
Unfortunately, I don't know which group you are reading, or I would have
snipped some of them, but it seems that you are trying to run before you can crawl. Don't worry, if you need to transfer it to a VB executable later, you can, but for the moment, learn how to do it using only Access.

Once you have the storage and data entry out of then way, then and only then should you look at reporting. Now Access does come with some reporting
tools, but I would suggest that you (or the school) look at purchasing and using Crystal Reports. Seeing as you have addresses this to that group, you may already have it. Once you get to that stage, post again.

Main point is, don't run before you can walk. This stuff may look easy, but it isn't. Take it one step at a time, and take your time doing it. If you are doing this part time, and I am assuming that your regular occupation is a teacher, which doesn't leave a great deal of spare time, you probably
won't have a finished product for some months. Don't rush it.

[chris]

i love databases and their uses and value to reporting are almost
unlimited, but in this case, i would like to respectfully disagree with
the choice of access as a data source unless they have alread started
down that route. for such a small, targeted application by a beginner,
it might be better to just serialize a dataset and avoid the added
complexity of access. the .net version of crystal understands datasets so
that's not an issue. that way, deployment is dramatically simplified by
keeping the app completely .net and free of com...chances are, the data
structures will need re-working soon anyway. there are obvious
normalization issues even with the given sample data structue, but i
intensionally ignored them since i didnt want to discourage such a noble
effort ;). of course, all of this assumes that this is a single user
app, but if they do choose to use a database, then i believe msde is a
better choice.

"Michael Cole" <mi**********@hansen.com.invalid> wrote in
news:ei*************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl:

Jonathan Smith wrote:

Hi

In order to make it easier for my colleagues to write their school
reports I thought I might attempt to write a (simple) program.
At the moment I am working mentally through the steps I would have to
code just to make sure that I can do everything before I start. I
have come to a halt with regard to printing them out.

Personal suggestion - firstly design an Access database (any version)
to hold the data. Design it how you want, without thinking about how
it is to be displayed, for the moment. Concentrate on one thing at a
time. Access is cheap and available, and will be all that you require
for the moment. Don't go overboard yet.

Next, within Access, construct forms for the entering of the data.
There are various Access VBA groups in this news server, and they
would be a lot more relevent than most of the groups that you have
sent this to. Unfortunately, I don't know which group you are reading,
or I would have snipped some of them, but it seems that you are trying
to run before you can crawl. Don't worry, if you need to transfer it
to a VB executable later, you can, but for the moment, learn how to do
it using only Access.

Once you have the storage and data entry out of then way, then and
only then should you look at reporting. Now Access does come with
some reporting tools, but I would suggest that you (or the school)
look at purchasing and using Crystal Reports. Seeing as you have
addresses this to that group, you may already have it. Once you get
to that stage, post again.

Main point is, don't run before you can walk. This stuff may look
easy, but it isn't. Take it one step at a time, and take your time
doing it. If you are doing this part time, and I am assuming that
your regular occupation is a teacher, which doesn't leave a great deal
of spare time, you probably won't have a finished product for some
months. Don't rush it.