During the installation process you will be asked for the license key, which is required to confirm the order. The IIS service must be reset before the new license will take affect. If you do not input a valid license key then the free version of OfficeWriter will be installed.
Next, you will see the screen (below) that configures the product installation with all the pre-supplied values.
OfficeWriter In Action
As you may be aware in Reporting Services, the Word format is not recognized or supported. But with the addition of OfficeWriter, Reporting Services delivers the reports directly in the Word or Excel formats. OfficeWriter allows separate roles of query developer and can create shared data sources and build queries.
OfficeWriter delivers reports directly from the Excel or Word toolbar to browse the Reporting Services server and display rendered reports directly in Microsoft Office.
The process of creation of Word or Excel with OfficeWriter is straightforward. For example, to create a Word report from an existing RDL file, you need to:
- Create a new Word document using OfficeWriter Designer
- Using the OfficeWriter Word Toolbar, set up a new query by using the OfficeWriter Designer toolbar under the Word menu bar at the top of your document.
- The Add Query button allows you to add new database queries to your report template. If you opened a report definition (RDL file) that was not created by OfficeWriter Designer (for example, an RDL file created in Visual Studio .NET), the Add Query button will not be active.
- Create bookmarks in the Word document by inserting fields from the query. Open the Insert menu and select Bookmark… to open the Bookmark dialog. Enter a bookmark name and click Add.
- Deploy the report to ReportServer. During this process, OfficeWriter will generate the report .RDL file, which is saved on the same folder where the original Word document is located.
