ActiveReports
ActiveReports is a .NET reporting tool used by developers of .NET, MVC, JavaScript, WinForms, and ASP.NET applications. It was originally developed by Data Dynamics, which was then acquired by GrapeCity. ActiveReports is a set of components and tools that facilitates the production of reports to display data in documents and web-based formats. It is written in managed C# code and allows Visual Studio programmers to leverage their knowledge of C# or Visual Basic.NET when programming with ActiveReports.

Among the components included with ActiveReports are exports to file formats such as PDF, Excel, RTF, and Word. The main components are a Visual Studio integrated report designer, and an API that developers use to create customized reports from a variety of data sources.

ActiveReports Standard Edition includes a Visual Query Designer, a customizable Windows Viewer control, and a WPF Viewer control. The integrated report designer handles three types of reports:

 Section Reports with banded sections like the original ActiveReports (reminiscent of Microsoft Access reports)
 Page Reports with a fixed layout for forms
 RDL Reports with a continuous page layout like the original Data Dynamics Reports (uses Report Definition Language)

The Professional Edition of ActiveReports includes the Standard Edition tools plus End-User Report Designer controls for desktop and web. Developers can host these report designers in their own Microsoft Windows and web applications to let end users create and modify reports. It also includes a client side JavaScript viewer, server-side ASP.NET viewer, ASP.NET HTTP Handlers that export reports to HTML or PDF format without custom code and advanced PDF encryption.

Features

Features new to version 3
ActiveReports Designer
 Design-time preview tab
 Component tray for design-time work with .NET data providers
 Report Explorer support for parameters and calculated fields
 Design-time support for custom parameters
 Design-time unbound fields

Windows Forms Viewer
 Users can add annotations
 Linked reports open in tabbed pages
 Web links open within the viewer

Reporting Engine
 Chart control supports seven new chart types
 Funnel
 Pyramid
 Gantt
 Kagi
 Point and figure
 Renko
 Three line break
 ReportInfo control for page N of M or report run dates

Features new to version 6
Latest Service Releases
 Microsoft Silverlight Report Viewer
 Windows Azure reporting in partial trust and full trust modes
 ASP.NET medium trust support
 Support for Visual Studio 2010
 Support for .NET Framework 4.0 Client profile
 Utility to convert from Crystal Reports (2005 and 2008) to ActiveReports

Standard Edition
 Cross-section box and line controls that span report sections
 Quality and performance improvements
 New Reduced Space Symbology (RSS) barcode styles
 External style sheets
 Designer snap lines
 Granular control over text boxes and labels
 64 bit support

Features new to version 7 
 Added Page-Based Reports with advanced data regions including charts, tables, and crosstabs that can be mixed within the same report section, eliminating the need to use subreports in most instances.
 Table Control
 Matrix Control
 Support for Visual Studio 2012
 Advanced Printing Support: Scale pages, add page watermarks, print multiple report pages on a single sheet (N-up).
 Persistent Licensing makes the installed system remain licensed until the license is manually deactivated, making upgrade to maintenance releases easier.

Features new to version 7, service pack 1 
 Added a WPF Report Viewer.
 Added a PDF/A export option for report archiving.

Features new to version 8 
 Added touch support for the Windows and WPF Viewer. 
 Added the Maps report item for spatial and analytical geographical representation of data with support for views, projections, vector layers, and Virtual Earth tile layers from the Microsoft Bing service.
 Added the HTML5 viewer with touch and gesture support.
 Updated reporting engine optimized for speed.
 Expanded barcode support for GS1 Composite symbology including RSS14Stacked and RSSLimited barcode styles, and added MicroPDF417 options to control compaction and segments.
 Added ActiveReports Server as an optional add-on that supports multi-tenant reporting, security extensibility, data caching, and report optimization features.

Features new to version 9 
 Added Layers, groups of controls that you can lock or unlock, add or remove, show or hide for complex layouts.
 Added the Visual Query Designer, a graphical interface that allows users to interactively build queries and view the results.
 Added the Table of Contents control to display an organized hierarchy of report headings and labels along with their page numbers in the body of a report.
 Improved Excel Rendering Engine for better exporting performance and precise layout accuracy.
 Added independent rounded corners for Shape and CrossSectionBox controls in Section Reports.
 Added support for mouse-controlled resize handlers for overflow areas in Page Reports.
 Improved reporting engine for better performance and smaller memory footprints.

Features new to version 10 
 Replaced the Matrix with the new Tablix data region to allow users to create stepped matrices, merge cells vertically, and use multiple adjacent row and column groupings.
 Added the Word rendering extension for DOCX format exports.
 Added style sheets for RDL and Page reports.
 Improved integration between ActiveReports Server and the developer version of ActiveReports so that developers can execute reports on the server and use shared data sets.
 Created a new lighter layout engine for faster rendering and fewer formatting and layout challenges.

Features new to version 11 
 Optimized rendering for two times faster first page load times, 1.5 times faster PDF export file generation and 60% smaller peak memory footprint.
 Added composite charts to RDL and Page reports to enable merging of line, bar, and area plots on the same chart with multiple Y axes.
 Added JSON data provider that allows reports to consume data from JSON files, web services and REST API.
 Added CSV data provider that allows reports to consume data from comma separated, tab separated, and other plain text files.
 Improved the XML data provider with an XML Query Designer with a tree view of the data.
 Added an Excel import wizard that can also be an intermediary for importing layouts from other reporting tools.
 Added PDF printing pre-sets and optimized the PDF export for shorter export times and smaller output files.
 Added galley mode to the HTML5 viewer so that wide and long reports can be viewed as a single, scrollable sheet.
 Added new properties to the API: PageReportDesignerActions (End User Designer), OverwriteOutputFile (rendering extensions), and OptimizeStatic (PDF).
 Added the Micro QR Code symbology to the barcode control.

Features new to version 12 
 With Dataset Joins in Page and RDL reports, you can use nested data regions bound to different datasets
 Shrink the text in TextBox and Label controls to fit within the width of the control by using MinCondenseRate property
 Support for some more industry-standard barcodes such as Code_11, SSCC-18, Telepen, and Maxicode
 The ActiveReports installer offers option to specify the installation path and option to integrate ActiveReports in specific Visual Studio IDE versions.
 Export your Page and RDL reports to CSV and JSON file formats
 New RepeatToFill Property for Tablix (Page report)
 We have enhanced the ActiveReports Import tool by adding a new RPX import feature, allowing you to convert your section reports to RDL reports.

Features new to version 13 
 ActiveReports now provides new generation viewer which is built on JavaScript library.
 You can embed the new Web Designer into any web application to deliver ad hoc reporting.
 New Chart control that provides ease of data visualization through encodings
 Convert Section reports to Page reports, in addition to RDL reports.
 We have a new AutoMergeMode property for detail cells in Table and Tablix data region. 
 Improved RichTextBox control now supports more tags and attributes.
 FormattedText control now supports more tags and attributes and displays the formatting of the html text directly in the Designer
 Extending your Visual Studio theme to the ActiveReports VS integrated Designer

Features new to version 14 
 Full .NET support with the ability to host reporting application, as well as ActiveReports rendering engine, on Windows, Linux, or Mac systems.
 Create interactive PDFs (Acrobat Forms) using the new InputField control
 BandedList control is now supported in the web based report designer
 The web based report designer also supports datasource and dataset creation
 The web based report designer can be localization using resource files.
 New WebViewer control was added for use with ASP.NET applications
 ActiveReports assemblies have been published to NuGet.
 ActiveReports samples are now published to GitHub.

Professional Edition
Includes all of the Standard Edition features, and adds the following:.

End-User Report Designer
 Allows developers to host the designer in Windows Forms applications
 Provides end-user report editing capabilities
 Provides easy access for saving and loading report layouts
 Allows developers to monitor and control the end user's design environment
 Allows developers to customize the designer to the needs of end users

ASP.NET
 WebViewer control with RawHTML, HTML, and PDF viewer types can be used on ASP.NET pages
Allows quick viewing of ActiveReports on the web
Provides printing and exporting capabilities
Provides text search capability with matches returned including page numbers
Supports end user interactivity (drill down, drill through, sorting, parameters, table of contents, etc.)

JavaScript Viewer
 Responsive web design
 Adapts different display sizes
 Less dependency on other libraries (jquery, etc.)
 Works on modern web application frameworks - ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Core MVC, HTML5, and major JavaScript Frameworks such as Angular and Vue.js

Web Designer Component
 Can be hosted in web applications to enable self-service reporting
Responsive to mobile and desktop layouts
Familiar layout and design
Supports modern browsers and frameworks (MVC, ASP.NET Core, JavaScript, etc.)

Supported document formats
 Adobe Portable Document Format (*.pdf);
 HTML Web Page (*.html);
 MHTML Single-File Web Page (*.mht);
 Rich Text Format (*.rtf);
 Microsoft Excel Workbook (*.xls);
 Plain Text (*.txt);
 Comma-Separated Values (*.csv);
 Image formats: (*.bmp, *.jpeg, *.gif, *.tiff, *.png, *.emf).

Included report items
 SubReport
 Chart

 Text Box
 Label
 Line
 Picture 
 Check Box
 Page Break
 Report Information
 Rich Text Box
 Shape
 Bar Code
 Cross Section Line
 Cross Section Box
 OLE Object
 3rd party controls (charts, grids, calendars, etc.)
 Matrix
 Table
 Banded List
 Bullet
 Calendar
 Container
 Formatted Text
 Map
 Overflow Placeholder
 Sparkline
 Table of Contents
InputField

Known Issues
In the past, ActiveReports was known to be unable to handle large reports. This issue was ongoing across years and versions. Since that time, development efforts have focused on improving large report handling in every release.

ActiveReports can be used in many ways, so each project can have a number of reasons for consuming memory. In newer versions, CacheToDisk and CacheToDiskLocation properties were added for PDF exports. Some other considerations that may cause too much memory use in section reports include:

 Large or repeated images on every page 
 Subreports in repeating sections instantiated in the wrong event so that many new instances are created instead of one
 Summaries in header sections that delay rendering 
 Report and Document object instances not released from memory

References

External links
 
Microsoft Solution Brief on ActiveReports Suite
 Microsoft Case Study on ActiveReports Suite
 ActiveReports Bestselling Product Awards at ComponentSource
 EggheadCafe for .NET developers on ActiveReports
 Crystal Reports vs ActiveReports
 Business Wire:GrapeCity ActiveReports 6 Adds Support for Silverlight Reporting and Enhances Windows Azure Reporting
 Business Wire:GrapeCity Announces New Upgrade-To-Suite Options for ActiveReports Customers; New Hot Fix for ActiveReports 6
 Business Wire:GrapeCity Releases ActiveReports 6, Latest Version of the Premier .NET Framework Reporting Tool for Microsoft Visual Studio
 Business Wire Press Release:GrapeCity-Data Dynamics Announces New ActiveReports/BI Suite for .NET
 Business Wire Press Release:GrapeCity acquires Data Dynamics

Business intelligence
Reporting software
Programming tools