How do I make PDF the default export option for a Crystal Report?

Question

I am working with CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.ReportDocument in WinForms in Visual Studio 2008. Right now when the users click the export button the dialog defaults to saving the report as a CrystalReports formatted file. It's possible to change the selector to PDF, but the specific request that I've been given -- and I've searched for too many hours trying to find -- is to make the 'export report' dialog default to PDF format option.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Answer 1

As of CR XI, the only way I know is to replace the export dialog with your own. You can add your own button to the CrystalReportViewer control and hide their export button.

Here's vb.net code to replace the export button with your own button/eventhandler...

Public Shared Sub SetCustomExportHandler(ByVal crv As CrystalDecisions.Windows.Forms.CrystalReportViewer, ByVal export_click_handler As EventHandler)
        For Each ctrl As Control In crv.Controls
            'find the toolstrip
            If TypeOf ctrl Is ToolStrip Then
                Dim ts As ToolStrip = DirectCast(ctrl, ToolStrip)

                For Each tsi As ToolStripItem In ts.Items

                    'find the export button by it's image index
                    If TypeOf tsi Is ToolStripButton AndAlso tsi.ImageIndex = 8 Then

                        'CRV export button
                        Dim crXb As ToolStripButton = DirectCast(tsi, ToolStripButton)

                        'clone the looks of the export button
                        Dim tsb As New ToolStripButton
                        With tsb
                            .Size = crXb.Size
                            .Padding = crXb.Padding
                            .Margin = crXb.Margin
                            .TextImageRelation = crXb.TextImageRelation

                            .Text = crXb.Text
                            .ToolTipText = crXb.ToolTipText
                            .ImageScaling = crXb.ImageScaling
                            .ImageAlign = crXb.ImageAlign
                            .ImageIndex = crXb.ImageIndex
                        End With

                        'insert custom button in it's place
                        ts.Items.Insert(0, tsb)

                        AddHandler tsb.Click, export_click_handler

                        Exit For
                    End If
                Next

                Exit For
            End If
        Next

        'hide the default export button
        crv.ShowExportButton = False
    End Sub

Then in the click handler you'd show a customized SaveFileDialog and eventually call the ReportDocument.ExportToDisk method. This way you can set the dialog's title and filename to something useful and of course set the default export type.