SQL Reporting Services 2008 Rich Text Format support?????

Question

 

OK Microsoft I have heard that SQL Server 2008 and SSRS 2008 will support rich text.  So I took some time to test drive this on a MSDN Virutal Lab. WRONG it does not work!!!!!!!!!!!!  OR PLEASE TELL ME HOW IT WORKS!!!!!

 

I created a DB called Demo

 

Added a varchar(MAX) field in a table and added the following TEXT:

 

<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Credit quality, and the controls surrounding credit management <strong>across the region remain </strong>strong.  <em><u>Only low levels </u></em>of deterioration have been experienced to date.  TEST TEST TEST <font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">however market impact has been minimal and the investment grade quality of the portfolio should mitigate market issues. RBD AAA 2/6/2008 CHANGE II.  BBBB</font></div>

 

And guess what happens when I create a data set to this table in SSRS Report.

 

I get the same exact text as you see above.  I hope you add support for this or either discontinue support for Rich Text in InfoPath forms.

 

Or at least tell the development community how to support data submitted from InfoPath that are Rich Text Fields that populate DBs via Web services and how to report on that data.

 

Thanks.

 

moojjoo

Answer 1

It's not yet in the builds released publicly.  You'll have to wait to the next CTP.

 

-Lukasz

Answer 2

When is the next CTP release of SSRS 2008?  More particularly when will SSRS 2008 be released?

 

Answer 3

As Lukasz mentioned, the ability to import HTML markup will be in the Release Candidate (RC0) public build.

 

I tested the XHTML string that you mentioned in the email, and the only thing that is not supported is the background-color CSS attribute.  Other than that, it works great.

 

Thanks,

Chris B.

 

Answer 4

 

The next CTP (which will be called Release Candidate RC0) will be available late second quarter of 2008.  SQL Server 2008 will release at the end of Q3.

 

Thanks,

Chris

Answer 5

How does one get around this limitation in SQL Reporting Services 2005?  We have rich text comments that were input in InfoPath to be displayed using SQL Reporting Services 2005. 

 

Thanks

Answer 6

You would need a third party solution to get around the fact that SSRS 2000 and 2005 do not support HTML markup.  Though, I'm not aware of any to suggest to you.

 

Please keep in mind that SSRS 2008 will support HTML markup, not RTF.

 

 

 

Answer 7

ok.. thanks

Answer 8

When you say Reporting Services will support Rich Text Format, does that mean that in VS2008 BI Report Designer we will be able to format one part of a text box as bold and the rest of the same textbox as normal or are you just talking about rendering data stored in a database with html mark up. If it's the former, I saw no evidence of it when I ran VS2008 BI Report Designer module against the 2008 SQL server instance in this CTP.

 

Will VS2008 BI Report Designer ever have the capability of mixed mode textbox formating in any 2008 CTP?

 

BTW what happened to the data tab in report designer?

 

Thanks,

 

Dave Kingman

 

Answer 9

Rich Text support means

1. formatting parts of a text box as bold, different colors, bullet paragraphs etc. 

2. parts of the textbox (so-called text runs) can be bound to expressions.  An expression could just reference HTML-marked up contents form a dataset field.  This will then be converted and integrated into the rest of the textbox contents at runtime.

 

Rich Text support is not available in CTP February, only later.  There will soon be an updated build available that includes it - but I can't provide an exact timeline at this point.

 

The data tab was replaced with a data toolbox window that integrates information about data sources, data sets, and report parameters.

 

 

-- Robert

Answer 10

I am having a problem in SSRS 2005 with the way reports are rendered on the report server.  All spacing characters are lost within a cell in a table so that the data is all condensed to the left.  In the development environment the reports render correctly and the data lines up in columns, retaining the spacing.  I read online that the new richtextbox control in SSRS 2008 will solve this problem.  Is that true?

 

Answer 11

It is possible to have mixed formatting in SSRS

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2008/10/rich-text-formatting-in-reporting.html

Answer 12

Hi Lettia,

 

I suspect that this is due to the fact that browsers choose to ignore contiguous spaces.  For example, if you create a regular HTML page in Notepad with lots of spaces between words, you'll see that IE (and other browsers) choose to ignore them.  In HTML rendering from SSRS, you're subject to the same limitation. 

 

Another option we've considered is to write &nbsp for spaces, but that has the really bad side effect of disabling word wrapping on the spaces (hence the "non breaking").

 

Can you use padding or a table structure to space out your text instead of spaces?  The behavior is the same in 2008 with respect to this behavior.

 

Hope this helps to understand what's going on.

 

-Chris B.

SQL Server Reporting Services

Answer 13

Does this work inthe current  2008 R2 ?

Answer 14

Does this work inthe current  2008 R2 ?

I have the same question. I just installed 2008 R2 and I do not see any RFT options. My reports still display jargon RTF code. 

Under text box, placeholder properties -> General I see Markup type section with only two options (None and HTML). How do I force text boxes to interpret the RTF code?

 

Answer 15

I don't see an option for RTF either. I hope it is not the case that the only solution is to convert rtf to html first?

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Irma Tanovic

Answer 16

HI Guys, I am not seeing the background color when I am using the "HTML Interpret" property to render the report using HTML tags.

I am in the SQL Server 2008 R2 version. Is this version is supoprting the background-color CSS attribute?

Please let me know.

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Thanks, Gaurav
http://gauravsqlserver.blogspot.com