Preparing to generate the report
BIRT provides output emitters for HTML, Adobe PDF, Adobe PostScript (PS), Microsoft Excel (XLS), Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT), and Microsoft Word (DOC) formats. BIRT also supports custom output formats provided by renderers developed from the rendering extension points.
Three task classes support generating a report from a source. Sections earlier in this chapter described how to open the two types of source, a report design and a report document. The following tasks support generating a report from the source:
IRunAndRenderTask. An object of this type creates a report in one of the supported formats by running a report design directly. To instantiate this object, call the ReportEngine method, createRunAndRenderTask( ).
IRunTask. An object of this type creates a report document (.rptdocument) file from a report design. To instantiate this object, call the ReportEngine method, createRunTask( ). After creating the binary format report document, create the report output using an IRenderTask object.
IRenderTask. An object of this type creates a complete report or a set of pages from a report by formatting the contents of a binary report document. To instantiate this object, call the ReportEngine method, createRenderTask( ).
Each type of task object can act on multiple sources. When the application no longer needs the task object, call the task’s close( ) method.