There are many posts and resources available on the web with instructions for accomplishing this, but I found most to be either incomplete or inaccurate.

The solution involves editing the rsreportserver.config file.  This can be found in the ReportServer installation folder (ex: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10_50.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer).  I would strongly suggest making a copy of the file first.  While odds are you won’t mess anything up, if you accidentally copy over some existing code or a cat walks across your keyboard while you are hitting Save…ouch!

After making a copy, open the file in Notepad or your favorite text editor.

In the “Render” section (about half-way down the file) simply insert the following code.  I, myself, inserted it after the “CSV” code,  but anywhere between the Render tags should be dandy.

<Extension Name="TAB" Type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.Rendering.DataRenderer.CsvReport,Microsoft.ReportingServices.DataRendering">
 <OverrideNames>
 <Name Language="en-US">TAB delimited</Name>
 </OverrideNames>
 <Configuration>
 <DeviceInfo>
 <FieldDelimiter>&#9;</FieldDelimiter>
 <UseFormattedValues>False</UseFormattedValues>
 <NoHeader>False</NoHeader>
 <FileExtension>csv</FileExtension>
 </DeviceInfo>
 </Configuration>
 </Extension>

Save the file and restart the “SQL Server Reporting Services (MSSQLSVR)” service to load the changes. The image below shows an example of the code inserted into the file.

You should now have “TAB delimited” as an export option.

If you want information on the “NoHeader”, “UseFormattedValues” and the other tags used, you will find it here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms155365(v=SQL.100).aspx

Thank you to all those who posted how-to’s on this across the web, even if not always 100% accurate.  I would have been unable to even get started without their help.

Try it out and enjoy!