Merge multiple PDF files created by BIRT reporting

[P_Kloetzer]

Hi all,

I have created workflow_1 to do calculations, which contains ‘Data to Report’ and ‘Image to Report’ nodes. Workflow_2 uses ‘Call Local Workflow (Row Based)’ to create workflow_1’s report via ‘Binary Objects to Files’. Nothing special so far.

I have be asked to expand workflow_2 to be able to create as much reports via workflow_1 as an input file contains ids. So I would like to separate the ids in workflow_2, send each id to workflow_1 to create a report with this id, and merge all reports in one pdf file.

Do you have any idea how to help me? I am limited to KNIME Analytics Platform without access to KNIME Server.

Best
Pascal Klötzer

[ipazin]

Hello @P_Kloetzer,

welcome to KNIME Community!

Probably Group Loop Start node will help to separate ids. Here is topic you can check which include example:

Loop through rows for multiple reports

Hello, I hope this message finds you well. I currently have a workflow that takes a .csv file and creates a report. However, I need to be able to create a report for each row in the .csv file. I have looked around and I have seen that the most common nodes for this are the loop and “call local workflow” nodes. I am having a hard time and would really apreciate some guidance. Is there an example workflow for this that I could use? Any help is apreciated! Thank you -Jorge

If you create multiple reports (multiple PDFs) I’m not sure you’ll be able to merge them in KNIME into a single PDF report so seems you should send all data into wf1, do separation there (same calculation for different ids within loop) and send that data (after loop end) to report to have only one PDF.

Br,
Ivan

[P_Kloetzer]

hey @ipazin,

I love what you did here:

ipazin/Public – Multiple Reports

But I would like to merge these two result pdf files in wf2, because each report in wf1 is 6 pages long and has a lot of input nodes.

Any idea? All I need is a pdf merger node.

Thanks a lot!

Best
Pascal

[P_Kloetzer]

@ipazin,

thanks again for your help. I will use a R Snippet with pdftools to merge the pdf files.

Best
Pascal

[ipazin]

Hi @P_Kloetzer,

glad you like it and good idea to use R to merge PDFs! Feel free to share workflow with Community on KNIME Hub once done

Br,
Ivan

[dr_snglr]

Hello @P_Kloetzer @ipazin , I’m kind of stuck at the same problem.

I need multiple tables grouped by a column on every page (a simplified example):

And the only solutions I see with BIRT and KNIME is to call a child report remotely, which creates a separate report for every group (multiple pdfs):

So, yea, ok… I can merge the separate files with Python, or R.

But I would like to use BIRT functions like table of contents, page numbering, etc. Don’t see a way how to do that.

[ScottF]

Hi @dr_snglr -

You might check the advanced reports example in our BIRT documentation for a couple of ways you can handle pagination and grouping in BIRT.