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BIRT 2.3.2 Chart to Excel, possible?
kedd
Hello everyone,
I have report that has both tabular and chart (bar graph) in it, when I export it in pdf and doc format the chart works fine, but when I export it into excel (xls) format the chart were gone and the table was intact. Could any one help me if BIRT 2.3.2 can do it and how?
Thanks in advance!
**** bless.
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mwilliams
With 2.3.2, you might look into the Tribix emitters. The default open-source version doesn't output images to XLS. There have been other new emitters written by community members for newer versions that you could check out, but they might not work back in 2.3.
Tribix -
http://www.birt-exchange.org/org/devshare/designing-birt-reports/33-tribix--extended-emitters-for-birt/
The newer ones are the SpudSoft Excel Emitters and Native Excel. You could try those, too.
You can find the SpudSoft in the Marketplace and the Native Excel emitter in the devShare.
Yaytay
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'mwilliams'" data-cid="116298" data-time="1366951898" data-date="25 April 2013 - 09:51 PM"><p>
With 2.3.2, you might look into the Tribix emitters. The default open-source version doesn't output images to XLS. There have been other new emitters written by community members for newer versions that you could check out, but they might not work back in 2.3.<br />
<br />
Tribix - <a class='bbc_url' href='
http://www.birt-exchange.org/org/devshare/designing-birt-reports/33-tribix--extended-emitters-for-birt/'>http://www.birt-exchange.org/org/devshare/designing-birt-reports/33-tribix--extended-emitters-for-birt/</a><br
/>
<br />
The newer ones are the SpudSoft Excel Emitters and Native Excel. You could try those, too.<br />
<br />
You can find the SpudSoft in the Marketplace and the Native Excel emitter in the devShare.<br /></p></blockquote>
The place to find the SpudSoft emitters is <a class='bbc_url' href='
https://bitbucket.org/yaytay/spudsoft-birt-excel-emitters'>BitBucket</a>
, but I'm afraid the earliest I could get working is 2.5.2 - hat version introduced changes to the styles that BIRT uses, which means go further back would be a lot of work.<br />
<br />
Jim
kedd
Thank you for your responses... I don't know much about BIRT, could you please tell me how will I use this plug-in (if that's how it calls it).. and please tell me how it goes because the only way I know how to test it is through extracting the report to excel file, I don't know if there's other way or is there script or codes I have to use so that it will work out?..
As I search on the internet I found what they say live report.. what I understand is, it was made from BIRT but when extracted to excel file it became editable.. I am not sure how did it happened, I just saw a video.
Thanks for your immediate responses.
Yaytay
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'kedd'" data-cid="116362" data-time="1367290226" data-date="29 April 2013 - 07:50 PM"><p>
Thank you for your responses... I don't know much about BIRT, could you please tell me how will I use this plug-in (if that's how it calls it).. and please tell me how it goes because the only way I know how to test it is through extracting the report to excel file, I don't know if there's other way or is there script or codes I have to use so that it will work out?..<br /></p></blockquote>
<br />
A plugin is a java file that has to be installed into your copy of BIRT in order to work.<br />
Usually this involves copying the file to the "plugins" directory, but it can be more complicated in some circumstances (such as if you are using a report server).<br />
<br />
If you are using a report server you will almost certainly need to install the plugin into both the design time environment (eclipse running on your workstation) and the server environment.<br />
<br />
In order to provide you with more useful information we'll need to know how you are running BIRT.<br />
<br />
Are you running BIRT just as the report designer, or are you using a report server?<br />
If you are using a report server, can you tell us more about it?<br />
Why are you limited to v2.3.2? That version is over 4 years old and there have been substantial improvements since then.<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'kedd'" data-cid="116362" data-time="1367290226" data-date="29 April 2013 - 07:50 PM"><p>
As I search on the internet I found what they say live report.. what I understand is, it was made from BIRT but when extracted to excel file it became editable.. I am not sure how did it happened, I just saw a video.<br /></p></blockquote>
<br />
Usually, when you emit a report as an Excel file any charts in the report are output as images, and cannot be edited in Excel (nor do they reflect any changes made to the data in Excel).<br />
There are three reasons for this: <br />
<ul class='bbcol decimal'><li>That's the way BIRT works, charts are given to emitters as images.</li><li>Creating proper charts in Excel is hard.</li><li>There is no obvious connection between chart designs in BIRT and in Excel.</li></ul>
<br />
So, whilst most of the third-party Excel emitters can output charts, they are just images in Excel.<br />
There are two emitters that make some attempts to work around these problems:<br />
<ul class='bbc'><li>Actuate One - The commercial version of BIRT</li><li>Artorus - Available at <a class='bbc_url' href='
http://www.arctorus.com/products'>http://www.arctorus.com/products</a></li></ul>
;
Both of these cost money, to reflect the amount of work necessary to work around the difficulties.<br />
<br />
Jim
kedd
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Yaytay'" data-cid="116364" data-time="1367298337" data-date="29 April 2013 - 10:05 PM"><p>
Are you running BIRT just as the report designer, or are you using a report server?<br />
If you are using a report server, can you tell us more about it?<br />
Why are you limited to v2.3.2? That version is over 4 years old and there have been substantial improvements since then.<br /></p></blockquote>
<br />
I am using BIRT Report designer. Uhm, it is because this BIRT version was recommended by the developers of the Maximo (Tivoli) for designing/creating reports. I don't know much about their compatibility so I have to stick with it.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Yaytay'" data-cid="116364" data-time="1367298337" data-date="29 April 2013 - 10:05 PM"><p>
Usually, when you emit a report as an Excel file any charts in the report are output as images, and cannot be edited in Excel (nor do they reflect any changes made to the data in Excel).<br /></p></blockquote>
<br />
chart that becomes images are fine if that's the natural way
I hope I could know how the chart wont gone when extracted to excel file. That live chart was just I thought another way to do it since I am not sure how everything goes with BIRT.<br />
<br />
Thanks for the response.
kedd
... I am thankful that I am learning from you guys.
Yaytay
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'kedd'" data-cid="116367" data-time="1367302299" data-date="29 April 2013 - 11:11 PM"><p>
I am using BIRT Report designer. Uhm, it is because this BIRT version was recommended by the developers of the Maximo (Tivoli) for designing/creating reports. I don't know much about their compatibility so I have to stick with it.<br /></p></blockquote>
Hmm, at this point I'm tempted to start a rant about commercial organisations that make money out of open source projects without enabling their users to keep up to date.<br />
<br />
Avoiding that, you will need to get the Tribix plugin installed into <em class='bbc'>both</em> your local BIRT designer and your Maximo installation.<br />
For the report designer there are two approaches:<br />
<ul class='bbc'><li>Use the Tribix update site (<a class='bbc_url' href='
http://tribix.sourceforge.net/update'>http://tribix.sourceforge.net/update</a>)
from within eclipse.</li><li>Copy the files <a class='bbc_url' href='
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/files/2.5.1/'>http://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/files/2.5.1/</a>
; to the plugins directory.</li></ul>
<br />
I'm afraid I don't know how to install extra plugins into Maximo (I don't use it), but you could start by seeing whether it has a "plugins" directory, if it does you can probably copy the files there and it will work.<br />
<br />
Jim
kedd
Sorry for the late reply...<br />
<br />
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Yaytay'" data-cid="116370" data-time="1367304261" data-date="29 April 2013 - 11:44 PM"><p>
Avoiding that, you will need to get the Tribix plugin installed into <em class='bbc'>both</em> your local BIRT designer and your Maximo installation.<br />
For the report designer there are two approaches:<br />
<ul class='bbc'><li>Use the Tribix update site (<a class='bbc_url' href='
http://tribix.sourceforge.net/update'>http://tribix.sourceforge.net/update</a>)
from within eclipse.</li><li>Copy the files <a class='bbc_url' href='
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/files/2.5.1/'>http://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/files/2.5.1/</a>
; to the plugins directory.</li></ul></p></blockquote>
<br />
I have put this (org.uguess.birt.report.engine.emitter.xls_2.5.1.201001221050) jar file in the plugins folder and try to run the reports I made using eclipse. The chart still not showing up in excel file.<br />
Did I missed anything?<br />
<br />
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Yaytay'" data-cid="116370" data-time="1367304261" data-date="29 April 2013 - 11:44 PM"><p>
I'm afraid I don't know how to install extra plugins into Maximo (I don't use it), but you could start by seeing whether it has a "plugins" directory, if it does you can probably copy the files there and it will work.<br />
<br />
Jim<br /></p></blockquote>
<br />
I will not put it into Maximo yet, I'll just have to make sure first that it works in BIRT. <br />
<br />
Thanks.
Yaytay
<em class='bbc'></em><blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'kedd'" data-cid="116406" data-time="1367459576" data-date="01 May 2013 - 06:52 PM"><p>
I have put this (org.uguess.birt.report.engine.emitter.xls_2.5.1.201001221050) jar file in the plugins folder and try to run the reports I made using eclipse. The chart still not showing up in excel file.<br />
Did I missed anything?<br /></p></blockquote>
<br />
The first thing to check is whether you are using the Tribix emitter or you are still using the built in one.<br />
The easy way to do this is to open a generated XLS file in a text editor - if it's XML (text) then you are still using the built in emitter, if the file is binary (gibberish in a text editor) then you are using Tribix.<br />
<br />
If you are still using the built in emitter see here for more instructions on getting Tribix to work: <a class='bbc_url' href='
http://birtworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/replacing-default-birt-xls-emitter.html'>http://birtworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/replacing-default-birt-xls-emitter.html</a><br
/>
<br />
Jim
kedd
Thank you Jim (Yaytay) for your response.
But why is it after I put the jar file in the plugin and then edit the BirtExportReportDialog.js
the xls file when opened to notepad become html format I guess since it has <html>
<head>
<title> tags then when I open the xls file to excel program, red font text appear and not the chart instead?
Yaytay
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'kedd'" data-cid="116427" data-time="1367551236" data-date="02 May 2013 - 08:20 PM"><p>
Thank you Jim (Yaytay) for your response. <br />
But why is it after I put the jar file in the plugin and then edit the BirtExportReportDialog.js<br />
the xls file when opened to notepad become html format I guess since it has <html><br />
<head><br />
<title> tags then when I open the xls file to excel program, red font text appear and not the chart instead?<br /></p></blockquote>
It's because BIRT failed to render the report and errors are always returned as HTML.<br />
<br />
The error report is saying that it can't find the extra jars that the emitter needs in order to run.<br />
In some configurations BIRT can find these jars inside the emitters jar, in other configurations (like yours) it needs the dependencies to be extracted from the plugin jar and copied to the plugins directory.<br />
<br />
Open the Tribix jar file using something like 7-Zip and inside it you will see a lib folder.<br />
Copy all of the jars from that lib folder to the BIRT plugins directory.<br />
<br />
Then cross your fingers, unfortunately fixing this type of error is a bit trial-and-error.<br />
<br />
A bit of googling for "tribix" and "2.3.2" returns:<br />
<ul class='bbc'><li>
http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/m/495966/</li><li>http://birtworld.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/birt-excel-output.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BirtWorld+(BIRT+World)</li><li>http://sourceforge.net/p/tribix/discussion/568019/thread/4f217ab6</li></ul>
;
<br />
Please read through all of those because I've never run 2.3.2 and they do have specific information.<br />
In particular the last of those says:<br />
Please ensure you are using the xls-emitter-bin_2.3.1_for_BIRT_2.2.x package,<br />
there are some binary incompatibilities between BIRT 2.2.x and later version.<br />
<br />
From that, try putting the contents of this file in your plugins directory:<br />
<a class='bbc_url' href='
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/files/XLS Emitter/xls-emitter_2.3.1/xls-emitter-bin_2.3.1_for_BIRT_2.2.x.zip/download'>http://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/files/XLS Emitter/xls-emitter_2.3.1/xls-emitter-bin_2.3.1_for_BIRT_2.2.x.zip/download</a><br
/>
<br />
Jim
