Standalone Report Designer
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Download and installation

This section briefly describes the steps involved in download and installation of the Standalone Report Designer setup.

Register and download Standalone Report Designer

  1. Go to Standalone Report Designer Home page and click Try it now. Product home page

  2. Register with a new account or sign in with an existing account. Account login page

  3. Once portal is created, you will be redirected to the accounts page. Product accounts page

  4. Expand the Downloads & Keys section and select Downloads. Product download page

  5. Under Standalone Report Designer, select the file type and click Download. Standalone Report Designer setup download

Installing Standalone Report Designer

  1. After downloading the setup file, double-click the EXE in its saved location to start the installation. Standalone Report Designer Installer Extraction

  2. Sign in with your registered email address to unlock the setup. Bold Reports license agreement

  3. Accept the license agreement of Standalone Report Designer by clicking the License Terms and Conditions.

  4. Read and accept the Consent to install CefSharp binaries and dependencies, then click Next.

    CefSharp is a lightweight .NET wrapper around the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) used for WPF web browser control implementations.

    CefSharp license agreement

  5. Choose the location where you would like to install the Standalone Report Designer setup and click Install. Path Selection Wizard

  6. Read and accept the license to ship the selected client libraries, then click Install. Client library agreement

  7. The installation will now begin. You can cancel the installation at any time by clicking Cancel, if you prefer. Progress bar Wizard

  8. Upon successful installation, the following screen will appear. Click Launch Application to start the program. Fininsh Wizard

  9. After installing the setup, two separate launchers will be added to your desktop: Bold Reports Designer and Bold Reports RDLC Designer. These are used for creating and editing RDL and RDLC reports, respectively. Desktop Shortcuts

Offline Installation

  1. After downloading the setup file, double-click the EXE in its saved location to start the installation. Standalone Report Designer Installer Extraction

  2. For offline installation, unlock the setup using an offline key. If you don’t have the setup unlock key, click the here option as shown in the image below to download it. Installation Using Product Key

  3. This will redirect you to the Bold Reports downloads page. Installation Using Product Key

  4. Click Get Unlock Key to download a file with the .lic extension. Installation Using Product Key

  5. To unlock the setup, upload the downloaded .lic file. Then, check the box to accept the license terms and conditions and click Next. Installation Using Product Key

  6. Follow steps 4 to 8 as described in the Online Installation section.

Difference between RDL and RDLC designer

Using the Bold Reports RDL Designer, one can design RDL standard reports (.rdl). On the other hand, Bold Reports RDLC Designer can be used to design RDLC standard reports (.rdlc). Both RDL and RDLC reports follow the same XML schema format. A detailed difference between RDL and RDLC designers are tabulated as follows.

RDL Designer RDLC Designer
It supports to design the 2008, 2010, and 2016 schema versions of Report Definition Language (RDL) report. The connection string and query details are stored within the report in the form of data source and data set It supports to design the 2008, 2010, and 2016 schema versions of Report Definition Language Client-side (RDLC) report. This format contains only meta-information of data set fields
It provides the in-build data connectors such as SQL, Oracle, OLEDB, ODBC, XML, and Rest API data sources. Report data are processed by the in-build connectors using the connection string and query details, which is stored in the respective RDL report It does not have any in-build data connectors, instead requires to manually build the data set fields and pass the data information to process the report
The RDL reports are ready to be published and uploaded to a SQL Reporting Server or Bold Report Server The RDLC reports are not suitable for server-side publishing and processing
The RDL designer is recommended for user who wants to publish reports into server and access them from multiple application using the single point (server) The RDLC designer is recommended for user who wants to maintain the copy of the report definition in application and pass data from application level to process report

The user can go with both RDL and RDLC designers for different purpose. The RDL designer is recommended for users who wants to publish reports into server and access them from multiple application using the single point (server). The RDLC designer is recommended for users who wants to maintain the copy of the report in application and pass data from application level to process report.