Changing Size of a Crystal Report to custom sizes beyond the size allowed in the local configured printer

Often in Crystal Reports, the width of the page needs to be set to varying and custom sizes. By default, the sizes available for any Crystal Report is dependent upon the size of papers that can be printed in the Printers configured to that particular desktop in which Crystal Report client is installed. So it becomes challenging to set to sizes of the report to be more than the maximum size allowed in the local printer. When Microsoft Document Image(MDI) Writer is available as a Printer then we could easily spoof around this. We will see the two different approaches and the glitches associated with each of them.

To increase the width(max 36”) of a Crystal Report (using MDI Writer):

Select 'Page Setup' from file menu.
Click upon the 'Printer' button in Printer Options
Select 'Microsoft Office Document Image Writer' as Printer and click on the Properties tab
Enter the required height and width in the respective fields and click ok
Now change the Printer type to default type and click ok
The Size will now be displayed as 'Custom Size'. Now Check the 'No Printer' check box under Printer options and click ok. The option must look as mentioned in below screenshot.

When you open the Page Setup again you will see the standard option displayed in size however the report will behave as expected.

To increase the width of a Crystal Report beyond 36 inches (using an external driver):
The width of the page in design tab can be increased by installing an external printer driver PDF4U.

Download and install PDF4U external printer driver. Performing a google search with "PDF4U" gives a number of urls from where PDF4U.exe can be downloaded. Then do the setup as below.
Go to File ->Page Setup->Printer and select the PDF4u printer from the drop down.
Now click the properties tab -> select the radio button custom size and enter the required width and height.
Do not check the 'No Printer' check box under Printer options and click ok.

This way the horizontal size(width) of a Crystal report can be set to any custom size more than 36 inches. The hiccup is not many companies allow download and usage of external drivers. So having a report of size more than 36'' could still remain challenging.

Peoplesoft

Changing Size of a Crystal Report to custom sizes beyond the size allowed in the local configured printer