Download and installation

To install the Bold Reports® Standalone Report Designer, register on the Bold Reports® website, download the setup file, and run it on your Windows machine. You unlock the setup online with your registered email address, or offline with a .lic unlock key file.

How do I download the Standalone Report Designer?

Register or sign in on the Bold Reports® website, open your account, and download the Standalone Report Designer setup from Downloads & Keys > Downloads.

  1. Go to the 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. After you sign in, you will be redirected to the Bold Reports® Cloud site. Click the profile icon in the top-right corner and select View account. Cloud page

  4. You will be redirected to the accounts page. Product accounts page

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

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

How do I install the Standalone Report Designer?

Run the downloaded EXE, sign in with your registered email address to unlock the setup, accept the license, choose an installation folder, and click Install. The installer adds two desktop launchers: Bold Reports Designer for RDL reports and Bold Reports RDLC Designer for RDLC reports.

  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<sup>®</sup> license agreement

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

    Note:

    • For versions below 10.x.x: You will encounter a consent window titled Consent to install CefSharp binaries and dependencies. Carefully read and accept the terms presented. Then, click Next to proceed with the installation.
    • For versions 10.x.x and above: The CefSharp dependency is no longer required due to the WebView2-based implementation.

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

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

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

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

  8. 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

How do I install the Standalone Report Designer offline?

To install the Standalone Report Designer without signing in, unlock the setup with a .lic unlock key file that you download from Downloads & Keys > Claim License Key in your Bold Reports® account.

Note: The offline unlock key option appears in your Bold Reports® account only after offline license support is activated for your subscription. To activate it, contact Bold Reports® support or sales. See How do I obtain the offline unlock key file from my Bold Reports® account page?.

  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 here as shown in the image below to download it. Installation Using Product Key

  3. The link opens the Bold Reports® downloads page. Installation Using Product Key

  4. Expand the Downloads & Keys section and select Claim License Key. Claim License Key page

  5. To download the unlock key file, expand the Get Unlock Key File accordion, select the Standalone Report Designer tab, and click the Download Unlock Key File button to download a file with the .lic extension. Get Unlock Key

  6. To unlock the setup, upload the downloaded .lic file. Then, select the check box to accept the license terms and conditions and click Next.

    Installation Using Product Key

  7. Follow steps 4 to 7 as described in the How do I install the Standalone Report Designer? section.

What is the difference between the RDL and RDLC designers?

The RDL designer stores the data source and query inside the report and can publish reports to a server. The RDLC designer has no built-in data connectors, so your application passes the data to the report.

Using the Bold Reports Designer, you 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. Detailed differences between the RDL and RDLC designers are tabulated as follows.

RDL Designer RDLC Designer
The RDL designer supports designing the 2008, 2010, and 2016 schema versions of Report Definition Language (RDL) reports. The connection string and query details are stored within the report in the form of a data source and data set. The RDLC designer supports designing the 2008, 2010, and 2016 schema versions of Report Definition Language Client-side (RDLC) reports. The RDLC format contains only meta-information of data set fields.
The RDL designer provides built-in data connectors such as SQL, Oracle, OLEDB, ODBC, XML, and REST API data sources. Report data is processed by the built-in connectors using the connection string and query details stored in the respective RDL report. The RDLC designer does not have built-in data connectors. Instead, it requires you 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 SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) or Bold Reports® Report Server. The RDLC reports are not suitable for server-side publishing and processing.
The RDL designer is recommended for users who want to publish reports to a server and access them from multiple applications using a single point (server). The RDLC designer is recommended for users who want to maintain a copy of the report definition in an application and pass data from the application level to process the report.

Choose the RDL designer when you publish reports to a server and share them across applications. Choose the RDLC designer when you keep the report definition inside your application and pass the data from the application.

See also