The Report Painter performs a similar task to that of the Report Writer, but is simpler to use. Most of the functions in Report Writer are also available in Report Painter. To create Report Painter reports you do not need extensive knowledge of Report Writer concepts, such as sets.

When Report Painter reports are executed they are displayed as Report Writer reports. They thus have the same functions as correspondingly defined Report Writer reports and can be combined with Report Writer reports in one report group.

The Report Painter uses a graphical report structure, which forms the basis for your report definition and displays the rows and columns as they will appear in the final report output, making test runs unnecessary.

To facilitate report definition, you can use many of the standard reporting objects provided by SAP, such as libraries, row/column models, and standard layouts, in your own specific reports. When you define a Report Painter report, you can use groups (sets), but you can also enter the characteristic values directly.

For more information on Report Painter, see Report Painter.

The Report Writer has extensive functions that require a certain amount of familiarization time.

For more information on Report Writer, see Report Writer.

For more information, see Report Painter reports and Report Writer reports.