What this book covers

Chapter 1, What is Pentaho Report Designer?, provides a quick overview of Pentaho Report Designer (PRD), its engine, its common uses, its main features, and its evolution.

Chapter 2, Installation and Configuration, explains how to download, install, and configure PRD 5.0. It also describes how to configure system requirements in PRD and explains database use in the book.

Chapter 3, Start PRD and the User Interface (UI) Layout, explains how to start PRD in different operating systems, explains its layout, and explains each area of its user interface.

Chapter 4, Instant Gratification – Creating Your First Report with PRD, explains how to create your first report, how to define its data sets, how to configure the report’s sections, how to add and set insertable objects and functions, and how to preview and export your report.

Chapter 5, Adding a Relational Data Source, explains how to download the JDBC driver of MySQL, how to create JDBC-type data sets, aggregation functions, and also how to modify the charset.

Chapter 6, Adding Groups, explains how to generate groups in the report and how to configure the behavior of the sections.

Chapter 7, Adding Parameters, explains how to create simple parameters and nested parameters, how to make a Parameter obtain its values through a data set, and how to dynamically construct SQL queries according to the values of Parameters.

Chapter 8, Using Formulas in Our Reports, explains how to create and use formulas.

Chapter 9, Adding Charts, explains a chart’s functions, the good and bad practices of using charts, each type of chart, and how to create and configure your own charts.

Chapter 10, Adding Subreports, explains how to add and configure subreports and how to set its internal Parameters.

Chapter 11, Publishing and Running Reports in Pentaho BA Server, explains about Pentaho BA Server and how to publish, display, and work with your reports in the Pentaho User Console.

Chapter 12, Making a Difference – Reports with Hyperlinks and Sparklines, explains how to create, configure, and use Hyperlinks and Sparklines in your reports.

Chapter 13, Environment, Stylesheets, and Crosstabs, explains how to use, add, and configure environment variables, stylesheets, and crosstabs.

Chapter 14, PRD Reports Embedded in Web Applications, explains how to embed and run PRD reports in your web applications.

Appendix A, Sakila DB Data Dictionary, explains each table's data dictionary, as well as a small sample of the data.