Within the last three months we purchased Stimulsoft Reports, learned to use it, developed 50 reports, and integrated them as into our application as report web pages with the standard report controls. Stimulsoft allowed us to be more reports of higher quality in a shorter time that I have seen before with many other report development tools. Some of the most significant capabilities for us are:
1. Rendering of reports to all designed formats - HTML, PDF, EXCEL, RTF, and CSV without any extra coding! The PDF rendering is fast and perfect. RTF allows direct opening in Microsoft Word to quickly email a report or integrate the results with a Word Document. Export to Excel allows data extracts through a web browser for charting, custom and ad hoc analysis, and a dataset for Microsoft Word mail merge.
2. Report design and database query procedure development can be separated so reports can be developed without depth of SQL skills.
3. Sophisticated formatting capabilities allowed production of each report in a format best suited to present the information, including landscape or portrait layouts, multi-columns, conditional formatting, and calculated fields.
4. Full automation of page formatting, including starting new pages, headers and footers, saved an enormous amount of effort and facilitated implementing a common look for pages headers and footers across reports.
I must say the product has more than paid for itself in labor savings while allowing better capability and appearance then we have known before. I hope to see continuing improvement of this fine product.
Nevin Henson
Software Engineering
Instant Software, Inc.