Adding a new renderer in Reporting Services

Written by Stéphane Dorrekens

Wednesday, 15 February 2012 13:56

I got the query today to remove formulas in a Excel export of a current sql reporting service report.
I first wanted to add a link in the report itself with the '&rc:OmitFormulas=true' suffix, but I found out there's a lot better way by adding a new renderer in the report server list as described in this MSDN article.

Just go to \program files\Microsoft SQL server\<SSRS instance>\Reporting Services\ReportServer and open the rsreportserver.config file with a text editor.
Go to the <Render> Section, you should have a subsection called <Extension Name="Excel" ...
Copy that line with a new name so you have something like :

then add the specific option(s) you want in the renderer, (here's the link to the excel renderer options), which gives

Stop start the SQL Server Reporting Services to reload the .config file.
Now, this did work but the names were both "Excel"; after rereading the MSDN article, you have to force a culture specific name; so the final file was (three culture as we are in Belgium) :

<Extension Name="EXCEL (No Formulas)" Type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.Rendering.ExcelRenderer.ExcelRenderer,Microsoft.ReportingServices.ExcelRendering">
    <OverrideNames>
        <Name Language="en-US">Excel (No Formulas)</Name>
        <Name Language="fr-BE">Excel (Sans Formules)</Name>
        <Name Language="nl-BE">Excel (Geen Formulas)</Name>
    </OverrideNames>
    <Configuration>
        <DeviceInfo>
            <OmitFormulas>True</OmitFormulas>
        </DeviceInfo>
    </Configuration>
</Extension>

Quite easy to do really and a very nice option to have at disposal, at least on premise.

Microsoft CRM "du jour"

Adding a new renderer in Reporting Services