SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

1901013 - Extra characters while reporting of Excel file

Symptom

  • Strange characters on the report.
  • Some Memo fields values in Crystal Reports have extra invalid characters added at the end of the text.
    For example, it displays the following on the report:

Extra Characters.JPG

Environment

  • Crystal Reports 2008
  • SAP Crystal Reports 2011
  • MS Excel 2007

Reproducing the Issue

  1. Create an Excel (DAO) report of Excel sheet with memo field (more than 256 characters long).
  2. Format the Memo field in the report to use Unicode font like "Arial Unicode MS".
  3. Browse the report pages and observe an extra characters in some of the values.

Cause

  • There is another DAO connection open to the Excel file.
  • It could be an MS Word document with a table inserted from the file or any other application that use DAO connection. 

Resolution

There are several options to avoid the DAO connections conflict:

  • Use a copy of the Excel file for reporting; or
  • Do not use another application to connect to the file, use "copy and paste" to enter data into Excel file; or
  • Use ODBC connection to the Excel file for reporting of it and for entering data.

Keywords

Garbage, CR, .xlx, Chinese characters , KBA , BI-RA-CR , Crystal Reports designer or Business View Manager , Problem

Product

Crystal Reports 2008 V1 ; SAP Crystal Reports 2011