Can SQL Express Reporting Services generate Word documents from RDL

Question

I know I can generate PDF reports with SQL Reporting Service (even SQL Express can do this) and I can do Word documents with SQL Developer edition. Since my dev box is SQL Developer and my website uses SQL Express (I know, it's far from ideal) I would like to know if the reporting service that is included with SQL Express can generate Word documents as an output.

Anyone who has experience with this?

Answer 1

I doubt that SQL Server Express itself can do that but you can definitely purchase a commercial tool to do so. As an example take a look Aspose Words.NET for example.

Answer 2

Unless you have existing reports that need to be rendered in Word format, the Open XML Format SDK may be a better choice than Reporting Services (which I don't think can do that anyways, at least not in SQL 2005).

Advantages: no Office installation needed, nothing to install but the SDK, no Reporting Services needed.

Edit:

2008 does render Word and I did not read anything about not all formats being supported in the Express edition. Another light-weight option may be the 2008 Report Viewer Control, which apparently can render Word documents as well.

Answer 3

We have used Aspose in production systems that required the final documents to be formatted in Korean. It worked like a charm.