I have a client who has asked for the ability to edit the contents of a previewed report (that was created in CR.NET).

There is also a requirement that the final image that is printed is saved/archived off as a PDF - so the 'changes' made by a user would need to be captured.

We've tried to come up with solutions where we'd allow the user to 'insert' comments and text in specific locations, but there are some instances where the users (typically at an administrative level) need the ability to 'edit' different parts of the generated report.

Unless there's something I'm really missing, the CR preview window doesn't allow you to edit the previewed image.

There's only one solution I can think of...

1) Run the report, and export the output to a Word Doc

2) Load Word from within the application, and pop-up the document

3) Allow the user to make any change they want, and save

4) Import the DOC file back to a memo and somehow re-generate the report (trick would be not to lose any formatting).

Other alternative would be to open the DOC file and use OLE to parse it and re-generate that way, though that could be very very trickly.

5) Re-generate the report to get it into the PDF (so we can capture, catalog, and archive the changes)

Now, step 4 probably wouldn't be needed if there were a way to go from Word to PDF on each user's machine. But I'm guessing that would require additional software on each desktop.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Kevin