You can use the BIRT Viewers to export a BIRT report, selected pages of a BIRT report, or a specific report element such as a chart, or cross tab, to Advanced Function Printing (AFP) format. AFP is a print stream technology that supports high-volume printing on high-capacity, and high-speed printers. If your enterprise generates large reports that require hard-copy printing, using AFP is a significantly more efficient option than exporting the report to PDF, or Word format, and then printing the report.
The AFP emitter enables you to specify several layout options as well as image rendering options for the exported content using the Export Content dialog box. You can set the following layout and resolution options:
The AFP emitter provides several color options to optimize the quality of the exported images based on the native image format supported by the printer in use. You can select any of the following color options depending on the native image format supported by the printer you are using:
The AFP emitter’s available image format options enable users to closely control how images are rendered in the exported output. All images are transcoded to the closest format that corresponds to the options selected by the user. To preview the exported output before it is sent to a printer, download the AFP Viewer plug-in and view the resulting output in your web browser.