How to Resolve the "You can assign System.String, IImage, System.Drawing.Image" Error in Telerik Reporting

Environment

Property	Value
Product	Progress® Telerik® Reporting
Version	17.2.23.1010+
Graphics Engine	Skia

Description

I have a CLR report definition created with the Visual Studio Report Designer for the .NET Framework.

I received an error message You can assign System.String, IImage, System.Drawing.Image (for GDI rendering), or SKBitmap (for Skia rendering) instances only when using Telerik Reporting with the Skia graphics engine.

Solution

When you embed images in reports in the Visual Studio Report Designer, they get added as resources in the resx file of the report definition. If you open the resource file with a text editor like Notepad++, the corresponding asset looks like the next snippet that represents a System.Drawing.Bitmap object:

<assembly alias="System.Drawing" name="System.Drawing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />
<data name="pictureBox2.Value" type="System.Drawing.Bitmap, System.Drawing" mimetype="application/x-microsoft.net.object.bytearray.base64">
    <value>
        iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAIAAAACACAYAAADDPmHLAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAARnQU1BAACxjwv8
        YQUAAAAJcEhZcwAACxEAAAsRAX9kX5EAAAP8SURBVHhe7d2vbhRdHMbxGrgFLqFBIEm4AAQahysWg8CR
        cAVwBYBDkeBRCEQFooYQBKKiAoFoQhAIxDBP05Jtec7s7O6cmXN+53uSj3pn2U2/Dx22f/LudV1Xhf2P
        1w96HaZlP9il6V8o8TOxH/CS9C+S+BnZD3op+hdI/MzsB74E/Ysj/gzsB39p/Qsj/kxsgCX1L4r4M7IR
        ltK/IOLPzIZYws0311+7F4i8bIy5EX85NsiciL8sG2UuxF+eDTMH4pfBxsmN+OWwgXIifllspFyIXx4b
        Kgfil8nGmhrxy2WDTYn4ZbPRpkL88tlwUyB+HWy8XRG/HjbgLohfFxtxW8Svjw25DeLXycbcFPHrZYNu
        gvh1s1HHIn79bNgxiB+DjbsO8eOwgYcQPxYbOYX48djQDvFjsrGvIn5cNvgq4sdmo1+49eQav6sXnA0v
        it+zD0Icg/EZQHyD8RlAfIPxGUB8g/HFPQhxDMYX9yDEMRhf3IMQhwZgw19wD0IcDKBxDKBxDKBxDKBx
        DKBxDKBxDKBxYQfw8PO9bpvz889pd3j6oXtx/LS7f3TH/tmRMIA1R2O4+2nfPkcEDGDE0WeFqJ8NGMDI
        E3UEDGCDo9uBe66aNTkA/Tfn8dcH3cuT52d/21NH17nnq1WTA3DXr9Kn+tQINBD3mFoxgIRn3x6dX335
        RLsNMIAEvfVLHXd9rRjAgNRx19aKAQxIHXdtrRhAgt4RuPPl15G9vlYMwLh9eOMstDtvv7+yj6kVA1ih
        8PrXfyq+jj4zuMfWqskBbHtOfh/b56oZA9jg6M90z1UzBjDy6Nbgnqd2DGDN0Vf+Iv9gCANInOjhLzQ5
        gNXr9M0dd/TNIL0rWL02ouYHoMj6170773+8u3RtRM0PYN210d73X8UAzukrfO5EvxUwgHOKnPohkMi3
        AgawIvUNIJ2otwIGcIX+trsT9VbAAK5o7VbAAAz9Wljq8N3ASuwyANFXAt2JditgAAn6odAWbgVhB4Bx
        GEDjGEDjGEDjGEDbDhhAuw76NzR7DKBNZ/EZQJv+xWcA7bkUnwG05b/4DKAdNr4wgPiS8YUBBKb/7a+L
        vooBBDUmvjCAgMbGFwYQzCbxhQEEsml8YQBBbBNfGEAA28YXBlC5XeILA6jYrvGFAVRqivjCACo0VXxh
        AJWZMr4wgIpMHV8YQCVyxBcGUIFc8YUBFC5nfGEABcsdXxhAoeaILwygQHPFFwZQmDnjCwMoyNzxhQEU
        Yon4wgAKsFR8YQALWzK+MIAFLR1fGMBCSogvDGABpcSXtQPA5AZ/V29uDGBeRcUXBjCf4uILA5hHkfGF
        AeRXbHxhAHkVHV8YQD7FxxcGkEcV8buu2/sLNx2vmOLdNKkAAAAASUVORK5CYII=
    </value>
</data>

Skia does not support the types from the GDI namespace System.Drawing. To resolve this error, you need to change the type of the above image to a type that is valid for both Skia and System.Drawing (GDI) graphic engines.

Follow these steps to fix the error:

1. Open the RESX file that contains the code referencing the image.

2. Locate the code that references the image as a Bitmap instance:

   <assembly alias="System.Drawing" name="System.Drawing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />
   <data name="{pictureBoxNameHere}.Value" type="System.Drawing.Bitmap, System.Drawing" mimetype="application/x-microsoft.net.object.bytearray.base64">
       <value>
           {the value of the image base64 string here}
       </value>
   </data>
   

3. Replace the code referencing the image with a pure base64 string:

   <data name="{pictureBoxNameHere}.Value" xml:space="preserve">
       <value>
           {the value of the image base64 string here}
       </value>
   </data>
   

The result for the sample image above would be:

<data name="pictureBox2.Value" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>
        iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAIAAAACACAYAAADDPmHLAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAARnQU1BAACxjwv8
        YQUAAAAJcEhZcwAACxEAAAsRAX9kX5EAAAP8SURBVHhe7d2vbhRdHMbxGrgFLqFBIEm4AAQahysWg8CR
        cAVwBYBDkeBRCEQFooYQBKKiAoFoQhAIxDBP05Jtec7s7O6cmXN+53uSj3pn2U2/Dx22f/LudV1Xhf2P
        1w96HaZlP9il6V8o8TOxH/CS9C+S+BnZD3op+hdI/MzsB74E/Ysj/gzsB39p/Qsj/kxsgCX1L4r4M7IR
        ltK/IOLPzIZYws0311+7F4i8bIy5EX85NsiciL8sG2UuxF+eDTMH4pfBxsmN+OWwgXIifllspFyIXx4b
        Kgfil8nGmhrxy2WDTYn4ZbPRpkL88tlwUyB+HWy8XRG/HjbgLohfFxtxW8Svjw25DeLXycbcFPHrZYNu
        gvh1s1HHIn79bNgxiB+DjbsO8eOwgYcQPxYbOYX48djQDvFjsrGvIn5cNvgq4sdmo1+49eQav6sXnA0v
        it+zD0Icg/EZQHyD8RlAfIPxGUB8g/HFPQhxDMYX9yDEMRhf3IMQhwZgw19wD0IcDKBxDKBxDKBxDKBx
        DKBxDKBxDKBxYQfw8PO9bpvz889pd3j6oXtx/LS7f3TH/tmRMIA1R2O4+2nfPkcEDGDE0WeFqJ8NGMDI
        E3UEDGCDo9uBe66aNTkA/Tfn8dcH3cuT52d/21NH17nnq1WTA3DXr9Kn+tQINBD3mFoxgIRn3x6dX335
        RLsNMIAEvfVLHXd9rRjAgNRx19aKAQxIHXdtrRhAgt4RuPPl15G9vlYMwLh9eOMstDtvv7+yj6kVA1ih
        8PrXfyq+jj4zuMfWqskBbHtOfh/b56oZA9jg6M90z1UzBjDy6Nbgnqd2DGDN0Vf+Iv9gCANInOjhLzQ5
        gNXr9M0dd/TNIL0rWL02ouYHoMj6170773+8u3RtRM0PYN210d73X8UAzukrfO5EvxUwgHOKnPohkMi3
        AgawIvUNIJ2otwIGcIX+trsT9VbAAK5o7VbAAAz9Wljq8N3ASuwyANFXAt2JditgAAn6odAWbgVhB4Bx
        GEDjGEDjGEDjGEDbDhhAuw76NzR7DKBNZ/EZQJv+xWcA7bkUnwG05b/4DKAdNr4wgPiS8YUBBKb/7a+L
        vooBBDUmvjCAgMbGFwYQzCbxhQEEsml8YQBBbBNfGEAA28YXBlC5XeILA6jYrvGFAVRqivjCACo0VXxh
        AJWZMr4wgIpMHV8YQCVyxBcGUIFc8YUBFC5nfGEABcsdXxhAoeaILwygQHPFFwZQmDnjCwMoyNzxhQEU
        Yon4wgAKsFR8YQALWzK+MIAFLR1fGMBCSogvDGABpcSXtQPA5AZ/V29uDGBeRcUXBjCf4uILA5hHkfGF
        AeRXbHxhAHkVHV8YQD7FxxcGkEcV8buu2/sLNx2vmOLdNKkAAAAASUVORK5CYII=
    </value>
</data>

Note

If you assign the PictureBox value with code, you can also cast the Bitmap to Telerik.Drawing.ImageBase or byte[] before assigning it to the report item.