[Knowage 8.1.26 CE] Problem exporting BIRT 4.17 report to Excel (page breaks not working)

[rui-mdias]

Issue Title:
Problem exporting BIRT 4.17 report to Excel (page breaks not working)

Description:
I am using Knowage version 8.1.26 CE in a Docker environment on OKD and encountered an issue when exporting a BIRT 4.17 report to Excel (xlsx) format. Although the page breaks are properly configured in the report, when exporting to Excel, all tables appear on a single sheet, instead of being split across multiple sheets according to the page breaks.

Additionally, I investigated the BirtReportServlet.java class (path: Knowage-Server-8.1.26\knowagebirtreportengine\src\main\java\it\eng\spagobi\engines\birt) and discovered the cause of the erratic behavior. In the code:

.....
} else if (outputFormat != null && outputFormat.equalsIgnoreCase(IBirtConstants.EXCEL_RENDER_FORMAT)) {
    renderOption = new EXCELRenderOption();
    setMSOfficeEmitterId("xls", renderOption);
    renderOption.setOption("ExcelEmitter.SingleSheetWithPageBreaks", true);
    response.setContentType("application/vnd.ms-excel");
    response.setHeader("Content-disposition", "inline; filename=" + templateFileName + ".xls");
} else if (outputFormat != null && outputFormat.equalsIgnoreCase("xlsx")) {
    renderOption = new EXCELRenderOption();
    renderOption.setOption("excel_native_charts", false);
    setMSOfficeEmitterId("xlsx", renderOption);
    renderOption.setOption("ExcelEmitter.SingleSheetWithPageBreaks", true);
    response.setContentType("application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet");
    response.setHeader("Content-disposition", "inline; filename=" + templateFileName + ".xlsx");
}
...

In both cases (xls and xlsx), the option ExcelEmitter.SingleSheetWithPageBreaks is set to true, which explains the behavior of exporting all tables into a single sheet.

My question is: why aren't the page break settings from the BIRT report being used instead?

Steps to reproduce the issue:

1 - Configure the page breaks in BIRT report.
2 - Import a report created in BIRT 4.17 into Knowage.
3 - Export the report to Excel (xlsx) format.
4 -Check that all tables appear on a single sheet.

Expected behavior:
I expected that when exporting the report to Excel, the tables would be separated into different sheets according to the page breaks configured in BIRT.

Environment:

Knowage version: 8.1.26 CE
Environment: Docker on OKD
Report: BIRT 4.17
Additional information:
If more details are needed, I am available to provide examples or further information about the environment.

Thank you for your attention to this issue!

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[rui-mdias]

Hello,
I can confirm that this issue also occurs in the latest versions. Please let me know if any additional details or logs are needed to help investigate further.

Thank you

[Redjaw]

Hello,
the option you highlighted has been set in the past as a workaround because the xls emitter was dividing the data in a wrong way.
Removing it for all exports will recover the issue. Is there some birt specific property we can point at?

Thank you

[rui-mdias]

Hello,

I made the change in a fork of Knowage, and it worked correctly.
The page breaks were applied properly because my BIRT reports are configured to perform page breaks per table.
After declaring a table or another object that we want to separate onto a new page, the following property must be set in the BIRT report:

<property name="pageBreakAfter">always</property>

Thank you

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it is related to an old version or it has been open 30 days with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this will be closed in 5 days.

[github-actions]

This issue was closed because it has been stalled for 5 days with no activity.