>>>>Hi all:
>>>>
>>>>Does anyone know a report designer alternative?
>>>>
>>>>I wanted to build my one report designer, but its becoming to slow (and with some bugs), its becoming also to much time consuming.
>>>>
>>>>Some ask why to build a diferent one, my answer is : its not open to changes and its in English.
>>>>
>>>>any sugestion is most welcome. thanks!
>>>
>>>Nowadays I do most of my reports to Excel. If this is an option for you, I made an older version of my reporting class available as download #9991.
>>
>>That download9991 is not 'to Excel'. Can you elaborate on how you do that?
>
>
>Hi Peter,
>
>If you are interested in automated reporting to excel, you might want to have look at Rep2Excel and CodeRep downloads as well.
>
>Nowdays I do most of my excel reports very simillar to old DOS style (?/??) reporting via excel automation class published there.
>
>Instead of 'set device to print'
>you would simply do do
>
>oXL=createobject...
>and then do normal old style 'print as you go' report
>

>with oXL
>.ln() &&moves current excel row downwads simillar to '?'
>.write_at(1,'Written in 1st column')
>*Writes value in desired row simillar to '?? at ...'
>.write_at(2,'Written in 2nd')
>.write_at(4,nMyVal)
>scan
>.ln()
>.write_at(1,nMyVal)
>endscan
>
>.etc
>.
>.
>

>
>
>endwith
>
>
>It uses Excel OLE, therfore it not so fast as other excel writing tecniques, but it is very easy/flexible for shorter but complex reports. Source is there so you can add more class methods next to already existing ones.

That's essentially what I already do IF some functionality is present in Excel and absent in VFP. By filling a sheet and then invoking Excel with certain parameters, I can present things like a pivot table and graphs. I also remember thus having fed with data existing sheets that already contained formulas. I wonder how widely used such techniques actually are...