Preface

This manual will help you learn about the extensive capabilities of Reports Builder (the report-building component of Oracle Reports), how to build different types of reports, and how to customize your reports to meet a wide variety of requirements.

Audience

This manual is intended for anyone who uses Oracle Reports to build reports. The needs of both novice and advanced users are addressed. Following the step-by-step instructions, you can build the example reports from start to finish. Each report that you build will demonstrate how to use many of the powerful features in Reports Builder.

Documentation Accessibility

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Access to Oracle Support

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Related Documentation

For more information about Oracle Reports, refer to the following resources:

Conventions

The following text conventions are used in this document:

Convention Meaning

boldface

Boldface type indicates graphical user interface elements associated with an action, or terms defined in text or the glossary.

italic

Italic type indicates book titles, emphasis, or placeholder variables for which you supply particular values.

monospace

Monospace type indicates commands within a paragraph, URLs, code in examples, text that appears on the screen, or text that you enter.

monospce italic

Monospace italic type indicates variables or user-supplied names.

[ ]

Brackets enclose optional clauses from which you can choose one or none.


Accessing the Example Reports

The supporting files for the reports you will build are available on the Oracle Technology Network (OTN): on the Oracle Reports page (http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/reports/index.html), click Getting Started to display the Getting Started with Oracle Reports home page. In the list of topic sections on the left, click Index. In the Topic list, choose Building and Developing Reports; in the Collateral Type list, choose Examples, then click Search. In the list of topics that displays, find Building Reports sample files and click the Download icon to download a zip file, called buildingreports_examples.zip. This zip file contains subfolders that correspond to the names of each chapter. Each of the subfolders contains all the supporting files (example reports, images, SQL query code, and so on) necessary for building the individual reports. Extract this zip file into ORACLE_HOME\examples (for example, D:\orawin\examples).

Additionally, the remaining examples in Getting Started with Oracle Reports provide a Web-based selection of examples in this manual, as well as examples not covered in this manual.

Accessing the Data Sources

The data sources used in this manual are:

The SCOTT, Human Resources, Sales History, and Order Entry schemas are available with the Oracle Database. You can contact your database administrator for more information on where to find these schemas. You can download the SQL scripts to install the Summit Sporting Goods (SUMMIT) schema from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN): on the Oracle Reports page (http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/reports/index.html), click Getting Started to display the Getting Started with Oracle Reports home page. In the list of topic sections on the left, click Index. In the Topic list, choose Building and Developing Reports; in the Collateral Type list, choose Tools/Utilities, then click Search. In the list of tools and utilities that displays, click the Download icon to download the SQL scripts to install the SUMMIT sample schema.