Displaying BIRT report in PDF format

Hello...

I am a newbie with BIRT and it is my first time using any reporting tool frameworks so please bear with me.

I am implementing BIRT report for an application I am asked to develop. Anyway, I can already display the report in HTML format, but I want to display in PDF format.

I have read a lot of resources in the web and some are confusing.

So my questions are:

- In transforming my BIRT report to PDF, do I really need to use iText for it?
- what about the HTMLRenderOption.OUTPUT_FORMAT_PDF... does it work?
- any easier method?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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mwilliams

Hi sjpondiong,

Are you deploying the viewer to render the reports or are you doing the displaying of the reports in a custom way within your application? If you're using the viewer, you should just be able to specify the format in the URL with the below URL parameter.

__format=pdf

sjpondiong

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'mwilliams'" data-cid="67586" data-time="1282322099" data-date="20 August 2010 - 09:34 AM">
Hi sjpondiong, 
 
Are you deploying the viewer to render the reports or are you doing the displaying of the reports in a custom way within your application? If you're using the viewer, you should just be able to specify the format in the URL with the below URL parameter. 
 
__format=pdf </blockquote>
 
Hello, sorry for the late reply... had some problems remembering my account details here... 
 
Anyway, to answer your question, no I am not using a viewer... What I am developing is actually a web application. 
I want to be able to have my HTML formatted BIRT report converted to PDF then the PDF file will be downloaded or opened using a PDF viewer. 
 
Is this possible?

mwilliams

You could deploy the standard BIRT web viewer and call the viewer to run your HTML reports. From there, the viewer has a standard option of exporting to PDF so that the user can save a PDF copy. You could also embed this already created viewer within a JSP page as a part of your application using the tag library.

Hope this helps.

sjpondiong

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'mwilliams'" data-cid="68416" data-time="1284495015" data-date="14 September 2010 - 01:10 PM">
You could deploy the standard BIRT web viewer and call the viewer to run your HTML reports. From there, the viewer has a standard option of exporting to PDF so that the user can save a PDF copy. You could also embed this already created viewer within a JSP page as a part of your application using the tag library. 
 
Hope this helps. </blockquote>
 
Okay, thanks for the suggestion but I don't think my clients will agree to it. 
 
They want it similar to Jasper reports, where you can convert the report directly to PDF.

_Petr

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'sjpondiong'" data-cid="68544" data-time="1284843286" data-date="18 September 2010 - 01:54 PM">
Okay, thanks for the suggestion but I don't think my clients will agree to it. 
 
They want it similar to Jasper reports, where you can convert the report directly to PDF. </blockquote>
Hi, sjpondiong 
You will look this topic <a class='bbc_url' href='http://wiki.eclipse.org/Servlet_Example_(BIRT'>http://wiki.eclipse.org/Servlet_Example_(BIRT</a>)_2.1 
You need create Birt Servlet. In this servlet set content type 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
resp.setContentType("application/pdf");
resp.setCharacterEncoding(encoding);
resp.setHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=utf-8''" + URLEncoder.encode(srb.getName().replace(' ', '_') + ".pdf", encoding));
</pre>
ant set type report 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
options.setOutputFormat(HTMLRenderOption.OUTPUT_FORMAT_PDF);
</pre>
this all. )

sjpondiong

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'_Petr'" data-cid="68546" data-time="1284887536" data-date="19 September 2010 - 02:12 AM">
Hi, sjpondiong 
You will look this topic <a class='bbc_url' href='http://wiki.eclipse.org/Servlet_Example_(BIRT'>http://wiki.eclipse.org/Servlet_Example_(BIRT</a>)_2.1 
You need create Birt Servlet. In this servlet set content type 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
resp.setContentType("application/pdf");
resp.setCharacterEncoding(encoding);
resp.setHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=utf-8''" + URLEncoder.encode(srb.getName().replace(' ', '_') + ".pdf", encoding));
</pre>
ant set type report 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
options.setOutputFormat(HTMLRenderOption.OUTPUT_FORMAT_PDF);
</pre>
this all. ) </blockquote>
 
 
thanks.. i will try this one

sjpondiong

@_Petr: Thanks for the suggestion, I tried it though, all I got was a bunch of garbage characters printed on the screen. 
Please refer to the image. 
 
<img src='http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/7968/screenshot3t.png' alt='Posted Image' class='bbc_img' />

mwilliams

sjpondiong,

When using the web viewer, you call your reports by a URL. One of the URL parameters is __format. You can include this parameter in your url with it equal to "pdf" and your report will automatically be taken to PDF format. Maybe this will help.

sjpondiong

@mwilliams: Thank you very much for the help and insights you have given me. I was able to solve the problem with your help. Sorry it took me a while to reply, I was busy with finishing the project.

mwilliams

Not a problem. Let us know whenever you have questions!

ocremedios

Is it possible for you'll to explain to me where and what i need to change in the BIRT application which enables me to export report from the BIRT viewer to PDF. I need to know where i got to create the BIRT servlet and [color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;]URL parameters is __format so that i can get the viewer to export reports into PDF.[/color] [color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;]Thanks,[/color][color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;]Oscar[/color]