Good looking reporting + charts solution for ASP.NET?

Question

Hi,

I am developing an ASP.NET MVC website which will include reports and charts based on the data entered by our users. Reports must be easily printable and exportable to PDF and XLS. Ideally, Reports should also contain inline charts.

I've played a bit with Crystal Reports and it does seem fit for the job except that the charts look horrible. That's about the same visual quality I get in my charts:

http://www.builderau.com.au/resources/images/ReportingB.gif

For instance, pie charts look blocky (no antialiasing) and there doesn't seem to be any way to have some nice looking color gradients.

I was rather expecting something like this, especially since it seems to be crystal reports as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3ACrystalReports2008.png

Is there any way to make my charts look like that? If not, what other options are there?

Please note that CR Chart Plus seems to do what I am looking for, but it definitely exceeds my budget for this program feature. I'm looking for a cheaper way, such as somehow embedding ASP.NET Charting Controls within a Crystal Report.

Answer 1

I would highly recommend amcharts:

http://www.amcharts.com/

It's free to use and has ASP.NET controls too. The free version says amcharts on the charts, and you can pay a license fee to remove it.

Answer 2

One option I found is to generate the charts as images with some other charting package (Such as ASP.NET Charting Controls), write the output to the harddisk and embed it in the report as an OLE object with dynamic URL.

In the end it seems like I will dump Crystal Reports entirely though since I also gave SQL Server Reporting Services a try and that looks much more like what I was looking for in the first place.

Answer 3

A very good option for you would be to use FusionCharts for ASP.NET. FusionCharts is a flash charting component that allows you to export the charts as PDF's or images at the click of a button. SO including them in reports becomes very easy.

http://www.fusioncharts.com

Answer 4

The Dundas Charts packages are very good-looking. So good-looking, in fact, that Microsoft licensed their technology last year.

However, I personally find the API a bit cumbersome to use, especially after getting spoiled by jQuery plugins like Flot.