Add an image with transparency to Crystal Reports

Question

Is it really true that Crystal Reports does not support images that have transparency?

We are using it at work and the guy that does Crystal Reports told me it doesn't support transparency. I couldn't believe it so I've spent the last 20 minutes googling and think he might be right. This seems absolutely incredible in this day and age.

Can anyone please confirm whether or not CR supports transparency, and if so how you do it (we are not limited by the type of image to insert - png, gif etc).

For the record we are using CR version that comes with VS 2008 (version 10.5).

Answer 1

CR doesn't support transparency but you can use a wmf image to solve your problem. I'm using CR 12 (2008), i need to put an image as signature (as a watermark) on another image.

Example:

Background_image.jpg Signature_image.jpg

Convert Signature_image.jpg into a wmf file using "Inkscape" (freeware).

In the report, we have "Background_image.jpg" and over it the "Signature_image.wmf" image, it works great!

Answer 2

Just reached over here while searching for same problem. Unfortunately this is true till this date :(

Answering this question for users who may visit again here.

Transparent background of image is not retained when adding it to Crystal Reports

I achived solution following way.

Painted transperent area with printing page color i.e. white in my case.

I would like to put image in page header and some text over it.

In CR design mode.

1. right click in page header section -> select section expert
2. select page header -> click insert
3. In page header a check "Underlay following sections" -> click ok.
4. back in design, in section "page header a" include image.
5. In section "page header b" include text which I would like to show over image (i.e. I am expecting to be transparent).

Hope this helps for future visitors.