BIRT report design guidelines

We are facing below issues as part of report design
1. Master page layout not getting extended in width even though the data table width is automatically increased when exported to PDF.
2. When grouping is applied to a column and when report is rendered with page breaks active, not showing border at end of data table.

In summary, are there any best practices/guidelines for proper BIRT report designing.

Many Thanks,

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mwilliams

Hi kems, 
 
Can you exlain what you mean in #1? The master page size is defined by you in the property editor. It doesn't change dynamically based off the size of the table. 
 
For #2, do you have a border around your group? Or just around the table? If it's just around the table, the table footer is not displayed until the last page, so there wouldn't be a bottom border until the table footer is displayed. 
 
For designing BIRT reports, there are many examples in the <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/devshare/'>devShare</a>, you can search in the forums for answers to already asked questions, and there is also a <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/wiki/GSG:Getting_Started_with_BIRT_Designers/'>Getting Started Guide</a> in the wiki that is still being created, but already has lots of useful information. Another place to look would be at the online help: 
 
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/documentation/BIRT_231/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm'>http://www.birt-exchange.org/documentation/BIRT_231/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm</a>

kems

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="mwilliams">Hi kems, 
 
Can you exlain what you mean in #1? The master page size is defined by you in the property editor. It doesn't change dynamically based off the size of the table. 
 
For #2, do you have a border around your group? Or just around the table? If it's just around the table, the table footer is not displayed until the last page, so there wouldn't be a bottom border until the table footer is displayed. 
 
For designing BIRT reports, there are many examples in the <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/devshare/'>devShare</a>, you can search in the forums for answers to already asked questions, and there is also a <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/wiki/GSG:Getting_Started_with_BIRT_Designers/'>Getting Started Guide</a> in the wiki that is still being created, but already has lots of useful information. Another place to look would be at the online help: 
 
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.birt-exchange.org/documentation/BIRT_231/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm'>http://www.birt-exchange.org/documentation/BIRT_231/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm</a></blockquote>
 
#1. Take an example when we have more than 15 columns as part of report. Now on layout we can any way accomodate all those 15 columns by adding columns right to the table but we can not increase the size of Master page beyond 11 unit. And this causes the problem when we export report to PDF. In the exported report the header, which is comming from Master page (11 units) is shown with lesser widht i.e. not 100% while the report body i.e. table layout is expanded to 100% width of the page or atleast to the dimentions if columns are fixed width. 
 
#2. I have a border around group header, group footer, detail section as well as table. Now take the case when group (e.g. Country) has my details(states) which is continued to next page. Now in this case border on details row will be displayed ok...but as the group is extended/continued to the next page...no border is shown at the end of the current page and when the group data is finished on the next page then only the border around group footer is displayed. Actually the border should be displayed on end of the table of the current page also if the group is getting extended to the next page due to more data rows. 
 
I will surly look the resourses mentioned by you. 
 
Many Thanks,