Anyone who's worked with the OpenOffice.org Base report writer knows that it's....a first generation product. It works but it doesn't have huge features. So I’m particularly glad to see some work being done with reports, in the new Report Builder extension from Sun.
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/ for all extensions
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/reportdesign for the Sun Report Builder
The Report Builder extension looks like it has a lot of powerful features, though not exactly easy to see how to use. I’ve spent a few hours with it and one thing that bugs me a bit is that the tab for selecting the data source for the report disappears if you click on something else first. Ease of use aside, though, it does have quite a feature set, including grouped records, sorting of records, different alignment of text fields, and calculations.
I'm going to have to spend a lot more time with this to really figure it out and give some procedures, but here's a short tour of the basics.
To use the Sun Report Writer extension, download and install it first. (Tools > Extension Manager). Then
open the .odb database file for the database you want to create a
report for. Choose Insert > Report, and you’ll see the report
writer interface.
This is the tab that disappears too quickly. Select Table or
another type of data, then select the actual source. Once you make
that selection, the Add Field palette appears; use it to drag fields
onto the appropriate section of the report.
Click the Sorting and Grouping icon on the toolbar to get this
window where you have a lot of control over how the fields and the
report behave.
When you’ve dragged fields onto the report, set options,
inserted page numbers, and done other formatting, save the report.
The report will show up in the Reports area of the main editing
windows of the .odb database file.
