Excel Emitter

Jenkinsj5

There are a number of after market excel emitters for BIRT, Google gets over 10K hits for 'BIRT Excel Emitter'. How do you compare function and compatibility between them? Is there anyplace that lists them all?

kclark

Each one has it's good points. I know that the excel emitter is Actuate BIRT is great. If you're looking for open source BIRT I use the spudsoft emitter a lot. There is also the tribix emitter. You can look in the market place for others.

Yaytay

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Jenkinsj5'" data-cid="114719" data-time="1362152174" data-date="01 March 2013 - 08:36 AM"><p>
There are a number of after market excel emitters for BIRT, Google gets over 10K hits for 'BIRT Excel Emitter'. How do you compare function and compatibility between them? Is there anyplace that lists them all?<br /></p></blockquote>
I wrote a brief summary f all of them on the page for mine (SpudSoft: <a class='bbc_url' href='http://spudsoft.co.uk/spudsoft-birt-excel-emitters-0'>http://spudsoft.co.uk/spudsoft-birt-excel-emitters-0</a>).<br />
<br />
If you can answer some questions I might be able to help to make a sensible short list.<br />
<br />
Q1. Do you use Actuate One, or BIRT Professional?<br />
If you do you'd need a good reason not to use the Actuate commercial Excel emitter.<br />
Q2. Do you have some money to spend?<br />
If you do consider either Actuate One (a big investment); BIRT professional (for standalone use); or the Arctorus emitters(s) (for adding just emitters to your current setup).<br />
Q3. Do you like the layout provided by the built-in Excel emitter?<br />
If you do, then look at the so-cal Native Excel Emitters (I hate the name, but they do what they claim, which is use the same layout engine as the Builth emitters but output real Excel files using Apache POI).<br />
<br />
Otherwise, use the SpudSoft emitters.<br />
These have far more options than the Native Excel Emitters and put more effort into enabling you to output Excel features than achieving high-fidelity copies of other emitters' output.<br />
<br />
I would recommend avoiding the Tribix Excel emitter, it's unmaintained and puts so much effort into producing output that looks the same as that produced by other emitters that the spreadsheet canot be used as a spreadsheet at all (empty rows and columns inserted en-masse to achieve positioning and bordering).<br />
<br />
All of the emitters I've talked about here can do images and multiple sheets in one workbook (though how they do them may differ).<br />
The commercial ones have some support for Excel functions, live charts and live pivot tables, the open source ones do not (the open source ones all use Apache POI which doesn't support creating charts or pivot tables yet).<br />
<br />
Jim

Jenkinsj5

Thanks Jim<br />
<br />
There is a typo in the link you provided to your article at SpudSoft here is the correction<br />
<br />
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://spudsoft.co.uk/spudsoft-birt-excel-emitters'>http://spudsoft.co.uk/spudsoft-birt-excel-emitters</a><br />
<br />
I am using the freeware 4.2 version in a large corporate environment. Any change to the emitter or even an update requires jumping through hoops, and validation of proposal. I have no intent, of going down that path currently. If it is not present out of the box, then "BIRT does not support that". <br />
<br />
I bring up the question, as I have been watching conversations here and elsewhere discussing emitters. I did some research and there is a huge void of published work on the subject the <a class='bbc_url' href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emitter'>Wikipedia disambiguation page "Emitter"</a> does not even mention on the subject. I was going to write something up over there, but was unable to find anything on Goggle Books to support even a stub article.<br />
<br />
As important as an emitter is to the BIRT/Excel relationship, there should be something concrete to base a choice on.<br />
<br />
I was hoping to find (or create) some kind of a chart listing the various emitters, what they offered, what BIRT Version they supported, and a brief pro/con compare. At first blush it looks like you just pick one, and hope it meets your needs, or do like you have done and create your own.<br />
<br />
Any suggestions for where I might find <a class='bbc_url' href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS'>reliable sources</a> to support a start on documenting something?

Yaytay

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Jenkinsj5'" data-cid="114762" data-time="1362400147" data-date="04 March 2013 - 05:29 AM"><p>
There is a typo in the link you provided to your article at SpudSoft here is the correction<br />
<br />
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://spudsoft.co.uk/spudsoft-birt-excel-emitters'>http://spudsoft.co.uk/spudsoft-birt-excel-emitters</a><br /></p></blockquote>
Thank you for the correction.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Jenkinsj5'" data-cid="114762" data-time="1362400147" data-date="04 March 2013 - 05:29 AM"><p>
I am using the freeware 4.2 version in a large corporate environment. Any change to the emitter or even an update requires jumping through hoops, and validation of proposal. I have no intent, of going down that path currently. If it is not present out of the box, then "BIRT does not support that". <br /></p></blockquote>
Open source BIRT, out of the box, is limited in a number of ways - not least the Microsoft Office emitters (the PPT one is even worse than the Excel one, you can't open the files at all in the latest versions of PowerPoint).<br />
The way around those limitations is plugins.<br />
<br />
Is your environment a server installation that you have no access to, or a local installation of BIRT/eclipse that you cannot modify?<br />
I ask because in the former case you may be able to 'install' a local copy of BIRT to evaluate plugins before jumping through the hoops.<br />
Eclipse doesn't require any installation other than decompressing the zip, so you don't need any special powers, just a chunk of disc space.<br />
But if your client is locked down to prevent even that you really are hamstrung.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Jenkinsj5'" data-cid="114762" data-time="1362400147" data-date="04 March 2013 - 05:29 AM"><p>
I was hoping to find (or create) some kind of a chart listing the various emitters, what they offered, what BIRT Version they supported, and a brief pro/con compare. At first blush it looks like you just pick one, and hope it meets your needs, or do like you have done and create your own.<br />
<br />
Any suggestions for where I might find <a class='bbc_url' href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS'>reliable sources</a> to support a start on documenting something?<br /></p></blockquote>
I know of nothing better than my blog page at the moment.<br />
I have planned to produce such a source myself for a long time, but it is a very big undertaking. <br />
A decent source should have:<br />
<ul class='bbc'><li>A list of supported features (both Excel and BIRT side)</li><li>Examples reports and outputs showing those features.</li><li>Details for different versions of BIRT and different versions of the emitters.</li></ul>
And on top of that all the output files should be automatically generated, so that a new version of the emitter can be covered easily.<br />
<br />
Eventually I will get around to writing such a beast, until then the best there is is this forum.<br />
<br />
One thing I could do fairly easily is run all the standard sample reports (from the BIRT source files) through the open source mittens and an evaluation copy of Arctorus (I can't get my hands on the Actuate one).<br />
<br />
Jim

Jenkinsj5

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'Yaytay'" data-cid="114775" data-time="1362425271" data-date="04 March 2013 - 12:27 PM"><p>
I know of nothing better than my blog page at the moment.<br />
...<br />
A decent source should have:<br />
<ul class='bbc'><li>A list of supported features (both Excel and BIRT side)</li><li>Examples reports and outputs showing those features.</li><li>Details for different versions of BIRT and different versions of the emitters.</li></ul></p></blockquote>
<br />
I agree <br />
<br />
I was not looking for myself, just interested in the list as a resource.<br />
<br />
I wonder if we could convince birt-exchange.org to host something here?