Yesterday I caught Keith's talk on new features in SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services at the monthly meeting of the Adelaide SQL Server User Group. I must say, as someone who's only just started using the original SQL 2000 Reporting Services a few weeks ago, I was drooling at the pretty new designer. Not to mention the new features and enhancements. Very nice!

Talking with my DECS colleagues this morning, the question of renderer support arose. Specifically will 2008 natively render reports as a Word document? (I understand that to do this previously, you needed to purchase 3rd party addins)

Turns out the answer is "Yes!". As of the February 2008 CTP, the following renderings are supported:

  • Windows Forms
  • Web Forms
  • CSV
  • XML
  • PDF
  • Image
  • Excel
  • Word

More details of the new features (grouped by CTP release) are published on the SQL Server 2008 TechNet site.