Change Paper Size and Orientation in Crystal Reports .NET

Design tip of the sporadic time interval:

If you need to change the size or orientation of a Crystal Report, you can do this in the VS IDE by right-clicking your report and navigating Designer >> Printer Setup.  On the first tab, you can choose the paper size and orientation.  Hit OK to return to the IDE, and the report canvas will automatically resize to what you just specified.

I don’t recommend setting any of the advanced printer options in your report unless you know the people printing the report will be using the same printer (such as a network printer).  Also, if you can’t fit your report on letter (or A4 for the metric world), the user is probably going to have to change the paper in the printer, which will more than likely cause some grumbling.

If your report is too wide for landscape, consider grouping the data into a more hierarchical report (not every report can be grouped, but many can).  Not only will this improve the readability, but it’ll help fit the report on a standard paper size.

Right-click in the whitespace on your report, not on a section heading.  You get different menus when you right-click on a section head.

If changing the printer information in your report generates printer errors (such as “Invalid Printer Specified“) when viewed on other machines, try changing the printer information at run time.  Here is a knowledgebase article that will help:

How to Change Printers at Runtime using Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET

If you want to set up a report for 8.5×14, you need to select a printer capable of printing 8.5×14 paper.  The location to choose the paper size depends on the printer driver.  In most HP printers, there is a tab called “Paper“.

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