Generating a Report
Now, you will generate a BIRT report from the data set you defined in the previous section. The BIRT report you added to the BIRT project is based on a Blank Report template, so you'll want to add report items to the report from the Palette view. Select the Palette view.
To add a title to the report, select a Grid Report item from the Palette.
Figure 8. Adding a Grid for Report Title
Next, you'll add a single row, and a single column grid. In the Insert Grid frame, specify number of columns as 1 and number of rows as 1, and click on OK. Select the Text Report item from the Palette to add these to the report.
To center the text, first go to the Edit Text Item frame and select HTML/Dynamic Text and Layout from the choice lists. Then click on <CENTER>. You'd click on <U> to underline the text, <B> to select bold text style, etc. Add text "BIRT PDF Report" to the text item.
Figure 9. Editing Text Item
Next, add the title text to the report.
Click on the Preview tab to preview the report design. The title will be displayed as in the report generated with the Report Designer.
Add another Grid from the Palette to the report for a JPEG. Select the number of columns as 1 and number of rows as 1. Add the Grid below the title Grid. Next, select the Image Report item from the Palette and add that to the Grid.
Figure 10. Adding Image Item to Report
In the Image Builder frame, select the Embedded Image radio button and click on Add Image.
Select a JPEG to add and click on Insert to add the image to the report.
To add a table to the report, select the Table Report item from the Palette and add it to the report.
Figure 11. Adding Table Item to Report
To add data from the Data Set to the table, select the Data Explorer view and select the Data Set node. Select the first column in the Data Set.
Figure 12. Selecting Data Set Columns to add to Report
Add the CatalogId column to the first Detail row cell. A header for the column will be added and the value binding of the column is obtained from the CatalogId column in the Data Set.
To add the value binding for the columns and column headers to the table, add the Journal column from the Data Set to the second column, the Section column to the third column, the Edition column to he fourth column, the Title column to he fifth column, and the Author column to the sixth column.
Modify the header properties with the Properties Editor. Select the CatalogId header cell and select the General property in the Properties Editor. Select the Courier New font. This applies the font to the CatalogId header cell.
Similarly, set the font of the other header cells to Courier New. Set the header text style for the CatalogId header to Bold with the B button.
You'll need to set the text style for the other header cells to Bold. To modify the properties of a row cell, select the Detail row cell and select the Properties Editor. Properties specified for a Detail Row cell will be applied to all of the rows for the column.
Figure 13. Setting Row Properties
For example, select the row ["CatalogId"] Detail Row cell and select the Padding property, and add padding to row cells. Add padding this way to the other Detail Row cells.
Figure 14. Adding Padding
You can also add hyperlinks to text in a table. For example, to add a hyperlink to the Journal column, select the Journal Detail Row cell and select Hyperlink in the Properties Editor. Specify the journal URL http://dev2dev.bea.com/.
You can also add borders and margins to a report. To generate a report, select File—≫Preview as PDF. This displays the report you've generated with the BIRT Report Designer. Save a copy of the report with the Save a Copy button. The example PDF report generated is available here.
The report you generated should consist of a table and an image, but you can also add charts and lists.
Easy-to-Use, But Not Without Limitations
BIRT is an easy to use Eclipse-based reporting tool but is does have some limitations: BIRT does not support J2SE 5.0 and does not support Eclipse 3.1. Also, because of browser limiations, some of the BIRT 1.0 features are not supported.
| Home / Articles
/ Generate a PDF Report from a Database with BIRT / 1 / 2 / 3 / |
New on the Java Boutique:
New Review:
Time Management Made Easy with the Quartz Enterprise Job Scheduler
Why not just use the Java timer API? This open source scheduling
API boasts simplicity, ease-of-integration, a well-rounded feature
set, and it's free!
New Applet:
Reverse Complement
Reverse Complement is a simple applet that converts DNA or RNA
sequences into three useful formats.
Elsewhere on internet.com:
WebDeveloper Java
Lots of Java information on webdeveloper.com
WDVL Java
Thorough Java resource at the Web Developer's Virtual Library.
ScriptSearch Java
Hundreds of free Java code files to download.
jGuru: Your View of the Java Universe
Customizable portal with online training, FAQs, regular news updates, and tutorials.
| 
