Crystal Reports™ provides a comprehensive reporting solutions for programmers to integrate report functionality with their applications.

As mentioned in the first chapter, to create a barcode you need to pass the input to the encoder, retrieve the barcode string, and format the barcode string with the DataMatrix font. Simply formatting the data with the font won't work.

Fortunately, Crystal Reports™ provides a way to add custom functions to the report. This method is commonly referred as UFL (User Function Library). The UFL functions are packaged in Windows DLL (Dynamic Link Library) format. Once registered, these functions are available to use immediately.

Note: The UFL must be present on the machine that the Crystal Reports engine runs. When you distribute the report, you'll need to distribute this UFL in order for your user to run the report.

The UFL for DataMatrix Fontware package provides two UFL functions for working with Crystal Reports: