1. RAS support
VS2008 supports RAS.
2. Word like edit in CReports:
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET 2002 or 2003 and Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005 include many of the features of http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms225592(v=vs.80).aspx#crconwhatiscrystalreportsforvisualstudio. These include the ability to create reports, connect them to a CrystalReportViewer control, and programmatically interact with these reports using the Crystal Reports SDK.
user crystal reports preview tool, it supports rtf editing(which is simillar to word doc editing),
How To Use Crystal Report Preview Tool
Download CrystalReportsPreview.zip, and then unzip the files to your hard disk.
Double-click the CrystalReportsPreview.exe file to start Crystal Report Preview tool.
You need Crystal Reports Runtime Packages install on your local computer to use this software, if you don't have it you can download it for free from here.
If you are planning to provide data to Crystal report through custom SQL statement, then first select the data provider from the dropdown menu. And provide the database connection string to connect to database.
Check custom SQL check box to enter your SQL statement manually and provide the data to crystal report.
Click on browse button and select the crystal report file (.rpt) you wish to preview and then click on Preview Report button.
If you like to see the database row data in a grid view using custom SQL statement, click on Preview Data button.
This Crystal Report Preview tool support report export feature. You can click on export button on the tool bar and export your report to (Portable Document Format) PDF,(MS Excel) Excel,(MS Word Document) Doc or (Rich Text Format) RTF formats.