Printing architecture

PDF printing in Oracle Application Express requires an externally defined print or report server. An external report server can be the Apache FOP reports server from Apache, the reports server from Business Intelligence Publisher, or server from a third-party such as Jasper reports. Different flavors of an external report server are possible. When the user clicks on a print link in Application Express, the Application Express engine generates the corresponding report data in XML format and a report template in XSL-FO or RTF format.

All of this architectural complexity is transparent to the end users and developers. Here, transparent means that the end user only sees the print link and the end result, and not the architecture behind. So end users just click on the print links, and developers just declaratively set regions to support PDF printing.

Your report server can be Oracle BI Publisher, Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J) with Apache FOP, or another...