# Reporting with Rails

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reporting-with-rails/163447>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 20, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reporting-with-rails/163447 "2009-03-20T13:42:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/46a35a/32.png) [@Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Fidel_V)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reporting-with-rails/163447/1 "2009-03-20T13:42:53Z")

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Hi all,

I was wondering how you guys generate reports from rails. I want to  
generate business reports in pdf format, and was wondering what you  
guys use. I have searched the web and found Ruport, but there isn’t  
much documentation or examples of real world business reports like  
jasperreports, for instance. Is it possible to generate good looking  
business reports with ruport? What other report generation plugis are  
there for rails?

Thanks in advance,

Fidel.

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**Author:** ![Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/46a35a/32.png) [@Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Fidel_V)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reporting-with-rails/163447/2 "2009-03-20T16:35:00Z")

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On 20 Mar 2009, at 13:42, Fidel V. wrote:

> I was wondering how you guys generate reports from rails. I want to  
> generate business reports in pdf format, and was wondering what you  
> guys use. I have searched the web and found Ruport, but there isn’t  
> much documentation or examples of real world business reports like  
> jasperreports, for instance. Is it possible to generate good looking  
> business reports with ruport? What other report generation plugis are  
> there for rails?

If price is not an issue, you could use PrinceXML to generate PDFs  
from XHTML+CSS. The result is great.

[http://www.intridea.com/2007/12/20/announcing-princely-rails-prince-xml-pdf-wrapper?blog=company](http://www.intridea.com/2007/12/20/announcing-princely-rails-prince-xml-pdf-wrapper?blog=company)

> **[GitHub - mbleigh/princely: A simple Rails wrapper for the PrinceXML PDF...](https://github.com/mbleigh/princely/tree/master)**
>
> master

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

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**Author:** ![Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/46a35a/32.png) [@Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Fidel_V)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reporting-with-rails/163447/3 "2009-03-20T16:58:26Z")

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HI Peter,

Thanks for the reply.

I have had a look at the link, and it is quite an interesting product.  
I don’t really mind if it is commercial or free, but what I am after  
is something like an API as opposed to a third-party software that I  
call from ruby.

But, I will give it a try and see how it works.

Thanks once again.

Fidel.

On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Peter De Berdt

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**Author:** ![Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/46a35a/32.png) [@Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Fidel_V)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reporting-with-rails/163447/4 "2009-03-20T17:04:29Z")

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Prawn and Prawnto combo offer some nice PDF generation functionality as  
well.

> **[\#153 PDFs with Prawn - RailsCasts](http://railscasts.com/episodes/153-pdfs-with-prawn)**
>
> Short Ruby on Rails screencasts containing tips, tricks and tutorials. Great for both novice and experienced web developers.

[http://prawn.majesticseacreature.com/](http://prawn.majesticseacreature.com/)  
[http://www.cracklabs.com/prawnto](http://www.cracklabs.com/prawnto)

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**Author:** ![Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/46a35a/32.png) [@Fidel\_V](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Fidel_V)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reporting-with-rails/163447/5 "2009-03-20T23:20:42Z")

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On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Lee S.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Prawn and Prawnto combo offer some nice PDF generation functionality as  
> well.
> 
> ## [#153 PDFs with Prawn - RailsCasts](http://railscasts.com/episodes/153-pdfs-with-prawn) [http://prawn.majesticseacreature.com/](http://prawn.majesticseacreature.com/) [http://www.cracklabs.com/prawnto](http://www.cracklabs.com/prawnto)

Thanks for the pointers Lee. I will look into those.

Fidel.