Is there a tool or programming method available to take the layout defined in a PDF and import it into Sql Server Reporting Services 2005?
Quite a few layouts are created as PDFs by third parties. It would make development a lot easier if I could use some of the layout already defined.
I do not know of anything that will do this.
The only way I could think of is to convert the PDF file into a RDLC file. The RDLC file is a XML file, and follows a specific schema. To do this, would take a lot of time. Your probably better of creating the reports in report services manually.
I will definitely keep an eye out on this thread, however, I am quite certain that this solution does not yet exist.
Jon's answer concerning turning the PDF into XML and using that as a base sounds like a possible solution, but as he said the time and effort behind it probably wouldn't make it worth it at all.
As far as I know, I don't recall any sort of true layout-importing feature to SSRS, nor have I heard of any third party tools which would make it easier. If I had, I would have already purchased it, because a major sink of my own time is replicating forms and reports generated on a client's legacy system to work on SSRS.
I currently have the same problem, but if I have to, I will take the pdf and save them as images -- allowing me to insert them into the report -- as a last resort.