As introduced, Pentaho Reporting is an easy-to-use, open source, lightweight suite of Java projects, built to let the report developer be able to create pixel-perfect reports of his/her data in PDF, Microsoft Excel, HTML, Text, RTF, XML, and CSV formats. These computer generated reports easily refine data from various sources into a human readable form, and can be accessed via an integrated web viewer, saved as files and sent by email to a predefined list of recipients. It is also possible to generate reports as part of a Pentaho Data Integration transformation, to distribute the generated files according to more complex business rules (http://community.pentaho.com/projects/reporting).
Pentaho Data Integration transformations are used to describe the data flows in a process, such as reading from a source, transforming data, and loading it into a target location. You will learn more in Chapter 16, Using Reports in Pentaho Data Integration.
As it renders such high performance, consuming, considerably low amount of memory, the report processing can tower from small footprint embedded scenarios to large-scale enterprise reporting scenarios. Pentaho Reporting integrates perfectly with the Business Analytics Platform and allows you to share reports with coworkers and peers.
Pentaho Reporting styling is flexible and it permits the report designer to choose the granularity at which they desire to manipulate the entire user interface, right down to the minute details like the font styling on individual characters. In addition to this, you can also add your own images and logos to these reports and select from the various layouts, charts, and tables the one that you wish to apply.