Crystal Reports 9

[Dianna McDonald]

Hi,
I am currently researching Java reporting methods for integration with our company product. I am looking into Crystal Reports 9 specifically.
I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with Crystal Reports and Java? How difficult is it to integrate? How well does it work? Should I bother with it or just use JFreeReports or something of that nature?
Any comments, suggestions and/or experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers

[Joel McNary]

I have not used Crystal 9 -- my experience with Crystal stops at 8. I understand that Crystal 9 has an actual Java API which makes it nice to work with (I've integrated Java into my apps using JNI so I can call their C API...a pain!)
However, I am looking at moving away from Crystal for several reasons. First, I would need to obtain a copy to continue using it, and it's expensive (although I believe that it does not take a license to deploy, just one to develop). Second, while it is a powerful reporting tool, it is full of bugs and it-doesn't-quite-work-the-way-you-think-it-shoulds. Simple reports are fine and easy to develop, but its support for subeports is lacking (subreports cannot have subreports, at least in version 8--this is the largest drawback, as I work a lot with hierarchy-based data).
Personally, when I get a moment, I will look into JasperReports. I've downloaded a copy but havn't gotten a chance to play with it. I think that it looks good (although there does not seem to be a WYSIWYG interface).
That reminds me of another problem with Crystal. It LOOKS like a WYSIWYG interface because you have a WYS, but the WYG is dependant on the printer driver! Printing the same report on two different printers can give different formattings/positionings of text. (This was particularly annoying when we used Crystal to print checks...)
Hope this helps you make you decision. Crystal is a good tool in general, but does have its problems.