SSRS 2008 Report Rendering Question

Question

Good Day,

I created a simple grouping report using BIDS 2008 and have set the following properties of a textbox to hide a row in the Table (or Tablix) control.

CanGrow = false CanShrink = true Hidden = true

The report displays fine in Preview mode, however, when I deploy the reports to the server and view it, it doesn't render the same way. While the row remains hidden (I set it to an obnoxious color to see if would display on the server), there's a huge gap between the headers and the details in the report.

My question is, does the preview mode using a different rendering engine than the Reports Manager?

TIA,

coson

Answer 1

Yes, I believe the rendering engines are different.

In preview mode, have you turned on "Print Layout"? I have found that will give you a much more accurate idea of what the report will look like on the server.

Is this gap the same size as the textbox?

Answer 2

You can check the versions of bids being used locally and on your server to see if they are the same.

Visual Studio Help > About > Find SQL Server Reporting Services in the list and click on it. I currently have Version 10.50.1600.1

Report Manager In a browser open your http://[ServerName or Address]/Reportserver. At the bottom it will also have the version number, make sure these are the same, otherwise you could have varying results.

Also, the rendering engine is different for the viewer compared to print/PDF. A quick test would be to overlap some items on a report. In the viewer, the rendering engine will seperate these items so they are not touching, while print and PDF will leave them overlapped. This is just one of the differences I've noticed.