10.9 Printing Report Regions

Configure a report region to print by exporting it to several different formats.

Tip:

If you run Oracle Application Express with Oracle Database 11g Release 1 (11.1) or later, you must enable network services to use report printing. See "Enabling Network Services in Oracle Database 11g or Later."

By taking advantage of region report printing, your application users can view and print reports that have a predefined orientation, page size, column headings, and page header and footer. Interactive reports also have the ability to export to PDF, RTF, Microsoft Excel and Comma Separated Values (CSV).

Note:

Interactive reports do not support a custom report layout.

Oracle BI Publisher supports Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), Microsoft Word Rich Text Format (RTF), or Microsoft Excel format (XLS), or Extensible Markup Language (XML). Oracle Rest Data Services also supports PDF and XML. If you choose to use other third-party rendering engines, other output formats can also be configured.

• About Printing Reports to PDF
  
• About Report Printing Configuration Options
  
• About Classic Report Printing Methods
  
• Configuring a Classic Report Print Attributes
  
• Configuring Interactive Report Regions for Printing
  
• About Report Queries
  
• About Report Layouts
  

10.9.1 About Printing Reports to PDF

To print a report to PDF, the data must be transformed using a report server defined at the instance-level. From an end user's perspective, you simply clicks a print link. However, from a developer's perspective, you must declaratively create regions to support PDF printing.

10.9.2 About Report Printing Configuration Options

Oracle Application Express provides three report printing configuration options:

• Oracle REST Data Services - Select this option if you are using the Oracle REST Data Services (formerly called Application Express Listener) release 2.0 or later. This option enables you to use the basic printing functionality, which includes creating report queries and printing report regions using the default templates provided in Application Express and using your own customized XSL-FO templates.

  Note:

  The Oracle REST Data Services option does not require an external print server, instead the report data and style sheet are downloaded to the listener, rendered into PDF format by the listener and then sent to the client. The PDF documents in this setup are not returned back into the database, thus the print APIs are not supported when using the Oracle REST Data Services-based configuration.

• External (Apache FOP) - Select this option if you are using Apache FOP on an external J2EE server. This option enables you to use the basic printing functionality, which includes creating report queries and printing report regions using the default templates provided in Application Express and using your own customized XSL-FO templates.

• Oracle BI Publisher - This option requires a valid license of Oracle BI Publisher (also known as Oracle XML Publisher). This option enables you to take report query results and convert them from XML to RTF format using Oracle BI Publisher. Select this option to upload your own customized RTF or XSL-FO templates for printing reports within Application Express.

  Tip:

  To learn more about installing and configuring Oracle BI Publisher, see "About Report Printing Configuration Options".

Note:

To use the full functionality of report printing, your Oracle Application Express service administrator must enable it for your instance. See "Configuring Report Printing" in Oracle Application Express Administration Guide.

10.9.3 About Classic Report Printing Methods

There are two ways to print classic report regions:

• Configure Printing Attributes for a Report Region. You can print a report region by configuring the Printing Attributes for the region. See "Configuring a Classic Report Print Attributes."

• Create a Report Query. You can print a report by defining a report query as a Shared Component. See "Printing a Report Region by Defining a Report Query."

Both report regions and report queries can be downloaded in the following formats:

• PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format.

• RTF - Microsoft Word Rich Text Format.

• XLS - Microsoft Excel format. Note that this is not a true .xls file because the content is HTML-based.

• HTML

• XML - Extensible Markup Language.

To format either a report region or report query, you associate it with a report layout.

Tip:

You can also have the output format specified by an item that determines the output format at runtime. Select the item that holds the format value. Valid values are PDF, RTF (to open the document in Microsoft Word), XLS (to open the document in Microsoft Excel) and HTML (to download the document as an HTML file).

See Also:

"Formatting a Report Region or Report Query Using Report Layouts"

10.9.4 Configuring a Classic Report Print Attributes

One approach to printing a report region is to configure Print Attributes. Once configured, these attributes apply only to the current region and cannot be used outside the context of the region. If the printing feature is set up for your instance, you can configure a report region to print in various formats.

To configure a classic report region for printing:

1. View the page in Page Designer:
   1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.
   2. Select an application.
   3. Select a page.
   Page Designer appears.
2. In the Rendering tab, locate the region containing the report.
3. Under the report, select the Attributes node.
   The Property Editor displays the report attributes for the page. Attributes are organized in groups.
4. Enable printing:
   1. In the Property Editor, find the Printing group.
   2. Set Enabled to On.
5. In the Rendering tab, expand the Attributes node and select the Printing node.
   Printing attributes appear in the Property Editor.
6. Edit the Printing attributes.

   Tip:

   To view help for an attribute, select the attribute in the Property Editor and click the Help tab in the central pane.

7. To save your changes click Save. To save and run the page, click Save and Run Page.

See Also:

"About Classic Report Printing Methods" and "Configuring Report Printing" in Oracle Application Express Administration Guide

10.9.5 Configuring Interactive Report Regions for Printing

If the printing feature is set up for your instance, you can configure a report region to print in various formats.

Unlike classic reports, the interactive report Print Attributes can only use the default XSL-FO layout and is initiated from the Report Attributes, Download section rather than directly from this screen. Once configured, these attributes only apply only to the current region and cannot be used outside the context of the region.

To configure an interactive report region for printing:

1. View the page in Page Designer:
   1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.
   2. Select an application.
   3. Select a page.
   Page Designer appears.
2. In the Rendering tab, locate the region containing the report.
3. Under Regions, select the Attributes node.
   The Property Editor displays the attributes. Attributes are organized in groups.
4. Under the Attributes, select the Printing node.
   The Printing Attributes display in the Property Editor.
5. Edit the appropriate Printing attributes.

   Tip:

   To view help for an attribute, select the attribute in the Property Editor and click the Help tab in the central pane.

6. To save your changes click Save. To save and run the page, click Save and Run Page.

10.9.6 About Report Queries

You can print a report region by defining a report query as a Shared Component. A report query identifies the data to be extracted. Unlike SQL statements contained in regions, report queries contain SQL statements that are validated when you save the query. Note that report queries must be SQL statements, not functions returning SQL statements.

See Also:

"Printing a Report Region by Defining a Report Query"

10.9.7 About Report Layouts

To format either a classic report region or report query, you associate it with a report layout. Using report layouts renders the data in a printer-friendly format. If you do not select a report layout, a default XSL-FO layout is used. The default XSL-FO layout is always used for rendering Interactive Report regions.

See Also:

"Formatting a Report Region or Report Query Using Report Layouts"