When you install ActiveReports 6, report design templates are added to the Visual StudioŽ installed templates list. In your Visual Studio project, open the Add New Item dialog to access the report templates. You can choose from code-based or xml-based report templates, or choose the Access Import Wizard to convert your existing Access reports.

The ActiveReports designer makes it easy to start designing great looking reports quickly. The Designer tab puts all of your design elements in one place: the dockable Report Explorer keeps all report sections, fields, parameters and report settings at your fingertips; the ActiveReports toolbox, also dockable, allows you to drag and drop a powerful set of controls onto your report and customize them. The Preview tab lets you see how your reports will look at run time without running the project.

The Professional Edition of ActiveReports 6 features a royalty-free, fully customizable end-user report designer control for Windows Forms. This allows you to host the report designer in your own Windows Forms applications and allow your end users to create and modify their own reports. You can also combine the Designer control with the included Toolbox and Report Explorer controls and the Visual Studio PropertyGrid control to give your end users full reporting functionality. The installation comes with a functional sample project that you can use as a starting point for your own application.

ActiveReports makes report design even easier with the new controls and design-time features:

• Drop one of the CrossSection controls into any header section, and it automatically grows dynamically and stretches across any intervening sections to its related footer section.

• Snap Lines allow you to glide your controls freely and visually align them with other controls instead of snapping to a grid. (SnapToGrid is still available in Report Settings.)

• Double-click inside the ActiveReports TextBox control or select it and press the F2 key to edit text directly in the control instead of using the Properties window.

• The TextBox and Label controls now allow text padding, and have new TextJustify styles: Distribute, and DistributeAllLines.

• Continuing formatting down a page with scant data, for example, a green bar report, is as easy as setting the RepeatToFill property on the Detail section to True.

ActiveReports allows you to use VB.NET or C# script to port your custom logic to report layouts. This permits layouts saved to report XML (RPX) files to serve as stand-alone reports. By including scripting before you save the report layout as an RPX file, you can later load, run, and display the report directly to the viewer control without using the designer. In conjunction with RPX files, scripting allows you to update distributed reports without recompiling your project.

ActiveReports 6 Professional Edition now includes the new Silverlight Report Viewer. Designed for reporting in Microsoft Silverlight 4 and higher, the ActiveReports Silverlight Report Viewer is simple, lightweight, flexible, localizable, and easy to customize for quick end user deployment. It includes these features:

• Preview reports loaded from a file, document stream, ASPX page, RPX Handler, or WCF service.

• End-user toolbar with Table of Contents (TOC), Thumbnails, Print, Search, Zoom, and Navigation buttons, plus you can add your own custom buttons.

• Printing support with an extra print-to-PDF option.

• Full UI customization with Themes and Localization support.

• Built-in pre-localized satellite assemblies for Chinese, Japanese, and Russian.

• Out-of-browser support (see included OOB sample).

ActiveReports 6 Professional Edition now includes a Flash-based report viewer that you can use to provide a seamless, interactive report viewing experience and one-touch printing using the widely-adopted Adobe Flash Player already installed on most end user desktops. Choose from pre-defined themes (including Office, Windows XP, Vista and Windows Classic) and enhance the viewer experience by controlling the printing, paging, table of contents, thumbnail views and other options with the extensive client-side API.

The ActiveReports toolbox includes a chart control that supports all of the most commonly used 2D and 3D chart types, including XY charts and financial charts. With advanced charting features like custom axes, annotations, markers, legends, and constant lines, you can create any chart you need. Using code, you can natively export charts to various image formats.

ActiveReports includes tools for exporting your .NET reports to popular formats like Adobe PDF, Microsoft Excel, RTF, HTML, Text and TIFF. You can use them in both Windows-based and Web-based applications. Provide export options for your users, or have your application create the exports automatically. With a separate DLL for each export format, you are free to use and deploy any combination.

The well-known PDF reporting features of ActiveReports just got even better in the Professional Edition. While exporting .NET reports to PDF, you can now digitally sign your reports with a hidden signature or with visible text and graphics. Personalize your signature using sixteen attributes. Use the signature to validate the report author, and a Certification Level attribute to control user access. Use the new Time Stamp feature to create third-party authorized versions of your documents. These features are fully compatible with Adobe's new security guidelines.