Chapter 1. Introducing BIRT Report Designers

There are two designer applications that you can use to create BIRT reports:

• BIRT Report Designer

  A tool that a report developer uses to build a BIRT report design and preview a report. BIRT Report Designer is a set of Eclipse plug-ins that includes BIRT Report Engine, BIRT Chart Engine, and BIRT Demo Database. This tool supports Java and JavaScript customization. BIRT Report Designer requires multiple Eclipse platform components and a Java Development Kit (JDK).

• BIRT RCP Report Designer

  A simplified tool that a novice report developer uses to build a BIRT report design and preview a report. BIRT RCP (Rich Client Platform) Report Designer includes BIRT Report Engine, BIRT Chart Engine, and BIRT Demo Database without the additional overhead of the full Eclipse platform. This tool supports JavaScript customization, but does not support Java customization or debugging.