printing bill in the preprinted paper using crystal report

Question

I am working on the desktop application which needs to print the bill.I am currently using Visual Studio 10 and sql express as database. I need to print the bill in the pre printed paper which has majority of the content. I just need to add the customer name, some customer details and content of the bill which is saved in the database. The pre printed bill has logo along with some basic information of the company.... so i need to fill the bill with name and search the data using stored procedure.

i will be grateful if anyone helped me in any way possible

Answer 1

Try scanning the hard copy paper into an image file, and setting that image file as the background on the report.

From there, just put a couple of the fields onto the report where it looks like they should go. Remove/hide the background and print a test page to find the offset. It should be pretty evident if the fields are generally a centimeter higher on the page than they should be. Then just adjust the fields accordingly.

I know it seems like a daunting task at first, but after the first one or two reports you will get the hang of it.

[Edit]

In the report itself, hide the header and footer and set the detail height to 7.5 (or whatever the full page height is, taking into account margins). Pass the report exactly one record with the values that need to be printed.

You may also consider using SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) instead of Crystal Reports. Crystal can be tricky to deploy with desktop applications. SSRS Express is free. You will just need to install SQL Server Express with Advanced Services.