The Report Painter is a tool with which you can create reports to meet your specific business requirements.

The Report Painter performs a similar task to that of the Report Writer. Many of the Report Writer functions are available in the Report Painter, but you do not need to be familiar with Report Writer concepts, such as sets, to be able to use the Report Painter. The Report Painter is a tool suited for creating less complex reports than those you can create using the Report Writer.

You define Report Painter reports using a graphical report structure, which forms the basis for the report definition. This graphical structure displays the report rows and columns, as they will appear in the final report when the report data is output. When you execute a Report Painter report, the system automatically converts the Report Painter report into a Report Writer format.

Although the Report Painter does not currently support all the functions of the Report Writer, you can convert a Report Painter report into a Report Writer report in order to use the complete spectrum of functions provided by the Report Writer.