Visual Studio 2010 RDLC: Support for HTML?

Question

I've read rumors that with the Report Viewer component of Visual Studio 2010 Professional, it is possible to render HTML from the database into a report. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find definite information online and I'd rather not buy the upgrade just to try it out.

Can anyone confirm or deny that this feature exists, preferably by citing a credible source (such as the VS 2010 documentation)?

(EDIT) Clarification: I'm talking about Visual Studio, not SQL Server. I know that SSRS 2008 and SSRS 2010 support rendering HTML. I also know that Visual Studio and SQL Server use the same libraries for rendering reports. That's why I think that it might be possible to render HTML in Visual Studio 2010 client-side ("local processing") RDLC reports. I just want someone to confirm this: Can I render HTML using the ReportViewer component of Visual Studio 2010?

Answer 1

You can render subsets of HTML in a VS2010 Report Viewer by editing the Place Holder properties under "General" on the L/H side of the properties window. This will work in .RDLC or .RDL file.

According to your comment above:

@Alison: The problem is quite simple: If I display a field containing HTML in a report, this field shows the HTML source instead of the rendered content. Your statement that rdlc s in VS2008 Professional support HTML rendering surprises me. As far as I know, this is not the case (see, for example, stackoverflow.com/questions/2172105). Can you give more information on how you think it is possible to display rendered HTML in a VS2008 report (note that I am talking about rdlc reports, not Crystal reports)?

Create a placeholder, or select one that may already be in a grid for example. Right Click and select Placeholder Properties. General should be selected by default, look under Markup Type, select the "HTML - Interpret HTML tags as styles" radio button. This will cause the control to render a subset of HTML.

Clarification: This works for .RDLC files created with VS2010 and its Report Viewer.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645967.aspx