Technical Blog Post
Abstract
How to develop a BIRT report to correctly print both in PDF and HTML
Body
Depending on how BIRT reports were developed, they may look fine on screen (HTML), but can be displayed in a different way when they are exported to or printed using PDF.
A simple approach can be used so that BIRT reports will look the same on screen and when they print in PDF. This approach follows:
1) After a new report is created by clicking on File -> New -> Report, select all the report containers (table, grids, etc) and on their layout tab, select the Property Editor tab, Properties sub tab and the General option as per figure 1 bellow.
2) Check that the Width option is set to 100% in all the containers. The containers need to have a 100% width so that they can handle resolution changes or a browser window resizing.
3) For the columns within a table or grid, make sure that the sum of their widths is 10 inches. This will let the PDF prints to be displayed correctly as well.
4) To set the column width of a table or a grid, select the container, click on the column header and select the Property Editor tab, Properties sub tab and the General option as per figure 2 bellow.
5) So, for instance, if you have a table with 4 columns and each column needs to be of the same size, set their width for 2.5 inches each.
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UID
ibm11133859