Good looking reporting + charts solution for ASP.NET?

Question

I am developing an ASP.NET MVC website which will include reports and charts based on the data entered by our users. Reports must be easily printable and exportable to PDF and XLS. Ideally, Reports should also contain inline charts.

I've played a bit with Crystal Reports and it does seem fit for the job except that the charts look horrible. That's about the same visual quality I get in my charts:

http://www.builderau.com.au/resources/images/ReportingB.gif

For instance, pie charts look blocky (no antialiasing) and there doesn't seem to be any way to have some nice looking color gradients.

I was rather expecting something like this, especially since it seems to be crystal reports as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CrystalReports2008.png

Is there any way to make my charts look like that? If not, what other options are there?

Please note that CR Chart Plus seems to do what I am looking for, but it definitely exceeds my budget for this program feature. I'm looking for a cheaper way, such as somehow embedding ASP.NET Charting Controls within a Crystal Report.

hmm, crystal reports 2008 + xcelsius seems to have some nice looking charts. Can't believe it took them this long to enhance the one reporting feature that every manager loves. — dotjoe, Oct 01 '09 at 19:54

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 06 '09 at 05:04

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A very good option for you would be to use FusionCharts for ASP.NET. FusionCharts is a flash charting component that allows you to export the charts as PDF's or images at the click of a button. SO including them in reports becomes very easy.

http://www.fusioncharts.com

answered Oct 06 '09 at 05:04

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm actually quite happy with SSRS once I gave it a try. :-) – Adrian Grigore Oct 06 '09 at 10:42

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 06 '09 at 05:10

1

The Dundas Charts packages are very good-looking. So good-looking, in fact, that Microsoft licensed their technology last year.

However, I personally find the API a bit cumbersome to use, especially after getting spoiled by jQuery plugins like Flot.

answered Oct 06 '09 at 05:10

Portman

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Thanks for the suggestion. I switched to SSRS 2008, so it seems I am kind of using the dundas charts now :-). I agree, these do look nice. – Adrian Grigore Oct 06 '09 at 10:43

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 29 '09 at 20:59

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I would highly recommend amcharts:

http://www.amcharts.com/

It's free to use and has ASP.NET controls too. The free version says amcharts on the charts, and you can pay a license fee to remove it.

answered Sep 29 '09 at 20:59

apiguy

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Nice-looking, but it uses Flash or WPF, so I couldn't include them in any reports, not to mention PDF and XLS export. – Adrian Grigore Sep 29 '09 at 21:05
They have javascript version now too. – Feb 26 '11 at 15:28

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:30

One option I found is to generate the charts as images with some other charting package (Such as ASP.NET Charting Controls), write the output to the harddisk and embed it in the report as an OLE object with dynamic URL.

In the end it seems like I will dump Crystal Reports entirely though since I also gave SQL Server Reporting Services a try and that looks much more like what I was looking for in the first place.

Good looking reporting + charts solution for ASP.NET?

4 Answers4