New features in SSRS 2008 aid with exporting reports to Excel
SSRS from its first inceptions has had the ability to export to multiple formats like CSV, XML, Excel, and PDF. The excel export is one in which many users(especially power users) find really useful because it allows them to export their numbers and manipulate it themselves. Sometimes though the flexibility of SSRS comes with a price, and SSRS merges cells together when exporting to Excel. This makes Excels’ sorting and filtering options useless. The merged cells happen when textboxes overlap eachother. The fix to make sure your textboxes(especially the ones over and unders cells you want to manipulate with Excel) don’t overlap. To that end, SSRS 2008’s Report Designer has a nice new feature which helps you space and size your textboxes accordingly. When resizing you textboxes or other report items, a blue stripline appears. When it reaches the boundaries of a textbox you can feel it snap in place. This help to insure the widths of the textboxes are the same, and when used properly will help insure they export to Excel in a sensible fashion. For more information on SSRS’s Excel export please see below. http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisbal/archive/2006/07/08/659545.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159836.aspx
