How can I remove the picture data added by Crystal Reports to a picture field?

Question

We have many Crystal Reports (8,11) files with picture fields. The image data is comming from BLOB fields in a temporary database.

The problem: The Crystal Reports designer is showing the image, which was in the database at the time the field was inserted and it seems the picture data is saved within the .rpt file. This leads to huge .rpt files (roughly 1-5 MB, compared to 20-80 KB without the picture field) and, because of that, long loading times.

Is there any way to strip the image data without deleting and re-inserting the picture fields? (This time with an empty database, of course)

Answer 1

I'm not positive, but I think it keeps the initial picture so it can remember the dimensions. Have you noticed that all the pictures are re-sized to match the initial image? It is quite annoying.

Answer 2

If the images came from the database, it might be saving to the .rpt if you have 'save data with report' checked in the file menu.