Predefined set of components and rules.

A BIRT report library is a collection of report components that can be used in a report design. Report components include reusable visual report items, data sources, data sets, parameters, translations and more.

A library is a customizable, pre-defined set of rules that helps a user quickly create a report with a specific look.

A BIRT library includes both formatting information and rules that help you the developer create a report. A library is like a "skin" for a report; it takes the data, structure and layout of a report and applies formatting defined in the library to transform the report's appearance.

A library may start with a "style sheet": a set of common styles to apply to all reports within an application. The library can then add commonly-used data sources, reusable components, translated text, images and more.

Styles in a library is defined inside a theme, a report design first use the theme from a library, then reuse a style within the theme.

A list of parameter elements that describe the data that the user can enter when running the report. BIRT supports four kinds of parameters identified above. The design can also include parameter groups that organize parameters visually.

Such parameters don't appear in the report's "requester page" unit a report uses them. The result uses a reusable parameter by defining a new parameter that extends the parameter defined in the library. In most cases, the report design simply inherits all characteristics of the reusable parameter.

The order of parameters within this slot in the design file determines the order that they will appear in the requester UI.

The parameters property provides a "flattened" list of parameters. Each parameter identifies the group (if any) to which it belongs.

Parameter values are also available using the params global variable.

This slot holds the list of reusable data sources. Each data source must have a unique name. The order of items within this slot is unimportant.

This slot holds the list of usable data sets. Each data set must have a unique name. The order of items within this slot is unimportant.

Master pages are reusable components available to report designs.The report design can simply reuse a library master page, can extend and customize a library master page, or can define a page just for that report design.

The page setup defines the way that the report will appear when printed. It consists of a master page that defines the page size, page "decoration", margins and so on. Some reports need to use different master pages, perhaps to have the first page of the report appear in letterhead, with the remaining pages on plain paper. Other reports may be printed and bound, requiring differing page layout for the left and right pages.

A report can omit the page setup information. If so, page setup is taken from a library, if provided. If the library is not provided, or does not have a page setup, or the master page does not have page dimensions, then the setup comes from BIRT preferences, or from locale-specific defaults.

If the user lists multiple master pages, but no page sequences, then BIRT uses the first master page by default. If the user defines one or more page sequences, then BIRT uses the first page sequence by default. Other than these two cases, the order of elements within the page setup slot is unimportant.

This slot defines a name space; the name of each master page and page sequence must be unique across the set of other page setup elements.

Only the simple master page is available in the first release, and the design can contain at most one simple master page in the first release.

The page setup can contain zero or more master pages (of either type) and zero or more page sequences (of either type). The simplest report provides no master page. It will appear with the default pages size and margins, and with no page header or footer.

This slot defines reusable report items. A report developer may want to use the same image, text, label or other item in several places within in the report. Instead of copying & pasting, the developer can instead define the element once in the library components slot. Then, he can use library to create the various instances.