Excel Emitter - Targeting a Report Element to a Specific Excel Cell

Hi Guys

I'm starting working with BIRT because my enterprise choose this solution to update our reporting solution so I need to ask you this question.

Anyone knows if it is possible with the Standard Excel Emitter or other Emitter, to specify a target cell to a report element?
Let's say that I have in my design
Label1: "Value1"
Label2: "Value2"

Now when I export it to excel I always want the "Value1" to be on cell A3, is there a way to say that this specific element when exporting to excel has to be always on the target Cell coordinate we want?

Is this possible with any of the available emitters? Even if its not available do you know if it is possible to do writing a new Emitter?

Thank you guys in advance

Best Regards
Paulo

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Comments

mwilliams

I don't believe any of the available emitters allow you to specify a cell, but I could be wrong. I would think it would be fairly simple to design your report so that the value always appears in the appropriate cell. Especially with the new emitters that don't try to make the XLS output look like the HTML output, like the standard emitter does.

ppires

Hi Michael

Thank you for your help.
Just one more question, what emitter in your opinion it's the most suited to achieve this need?
I've seen Tribix, Arctorus and Actuate, the first 2 ones I know that are free and the last one it's the more complete but are a non-free version and I don't understande if it can be use just as a emitter or if I need to buy the whole solution.
Tribix for what you have said it's not a good option because it creates a lot of empty cell's to make it look like "what you get is what you see".
So is Arctorus a good option, do you know any other available option that I've not seen yet?

Thanks in advance

Regards
Paulo

mwilliams

Take a look at this one from the marketplace:

http://www.birt-exchange.com/be/marketplace/app-showcase/?app=102

It's free and should solve the "WYSIWYG" problem.

ppires

Hi Michael

Ok I will check this one.
Thanks a lot for your help.

Regards
Paulo

mwilliams

You're welcome. Let me know if this gets you what you're wanting, or not.

Yaytay

As far as I know none of the Excel emitters allow you to explicitly place content in a given cell, and all of them produce repeatable results (so once you've got it in the right cell it'll stay there).

Tribix will be the most fragile in that regard - a slight tweak (like changing borders) will change the cell used.
And SpudSoft (mine) will be the most robust - the content will not change cell unless you add rows or columns with other content.
You should also find that the SpudSoft emitter is the most predictable - meaning that placing content in a specific cell is easiest with it.
But you should be able to produce a stable design with Native and Arctorus (which wasn't free last time I looked).

One of these days I'll produce a decent web site comparing the Excel emitters.

Yaytay

ppires

Hi Michael,

For now we are just studying the options, but when I pass to the tests I will gladly inform you of the results.
But for a simple test with the standard emitter we were able to place an element always on the same cell when exporting.

Hello Yaytay

I thought Arctorus was free, maybe I see it wrong.
Yes Tribix is out of question, when we test your emitter if we choose that way I will write a reply here so you can read it too.

Thanks both for your help

Regards
Paulo

mwilliams

Definitely let us know how whichever you use works out for you!