Hi,
The users of a report ask me to add a tab with some explainatory descriptions kind of a legend.
Like explaining what is being measured , how and why.
Any ideas on how I can do that. I tried copying the text from Word to my report but then i have no formatting possibilies.
thanks for any suggestion
renwin (BOB member since 2014-10-06)
Usually we just create a table on a page and paste the text in from Word. I can say that I never have had any problem formatting it after.
Mak 1 
(BOB member since 2005-01-06)
Keep in mind that if you want multiple types of formatting (e.g., bold headers, italic keywords) that you can’t apply that in a single cell by default. You either have to break your text up into multiple cells (the best choice for highlighting headers and managing indents) or turn on HTML formatting for the cell (the best choice to highlight specific words in the text).
Lugh (BOB member since 2009-07-16)
Good point Lugh 
When I had to do management packs in the past, I managed to do these and insert “live” fields etc by being inventive with tables and alignment etc.
Mak 1 
(BOB member since 2005-01-06)
Mark1 and Lugh answered this completely… unfortunately. And when it comes down to it, text editing cell information really sucks in rich client. If you have a lot of edits, close rich client, go to the BI Launchpad open the WEBI and select design. At least the information in the cell is word wrapped during edit instead of 3-4 paragraphs on a single line scrolled off the cell or screen. One last resort, create what you want in Word, use SnagIt or some other screen capture software to produce an image and import the image. Hope you don’t have to change the text that often.
Does anyone at BusinessObjects… you know… like system designers really use WEBI. Its like using word processing from the early 1980’s. Knock knock… Hello - anyone home - its the 21st century. It’s the same crap in SAP Dashboards. I have Bill Gates phone number if they need a contact. Six versions and 63 Service packs later… Good development time spent screwing off on stupid work-around methods for simple text processing you should already have. Time to think out-of-the-box or out-of-the-cell. …and the pursuit of happiness. HA!
datawizard (BOB member since 2015-01-20)
Great rant 
.
You are echoing the thoughts of others when asking whether any of the system designers actually use Webi.
I suspect not!
Mak 1 (BOB member since 2005-01-06)
Can’t help but throwing in my 2p 
Create an empty report for all users to use for report development, put in a tab for information, where you format a couple of text cells for whatever information is required. Add predefined cells, anything you cannot easily do by editing the css template. It takes a bit of work once only, make sure you protect it and have a master copy. this way you have the users’ requirement covered and, by formatting everything in adherence to your companies style conventions, colours and adding a logo you end up with a nice corporate template on top.
There is also the option to use the -agreed unpopular- discussions, or if you work for a company with money to burn then you may want to have a look at the SAP Business Objects Commentary Solution, however this is not an official product, has to be implemented by SAP consultants as it is their own solution and will require maintenance, hence only a solution for enterprise sized comanies.
BTW nothing wrong with WebI, there is a tool for each requirement, and WebI is not a word processor, nor a data pump, ETL tool or other apps some people are trying to use it for.
BUDJO 
(BOB member since 2013-01-10)
The one thing you cannot argue with the new incarnation is that the 4x interface is poorly designed and it takes more clicks to do anything than before.
That is what I was alluding to, in any case.
Interactive, shared comments and the ability to create definitions and commentry in management packs should be standard functionaility IMO.
Strangely, Crystal is far better placed as far as fixed definitions and commentry formatting goes.
Mak 1 (BOB member since 2005-01-06)
I’d argue that there are LOTS of things wrong with WebI. I’m not sure I’d put text formatting high on that list. I have a host of things I’d rather them fix first. Let’s start with proper error handling.
Lugh (BOB member since 2009-07-16)
I am all with you on that one, Lugh. Or improve performance and footprint of interface in general, in particular WIRC.
Webi was never designed to be an ETL tool or Word Processing tool…
Andreas 
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
You’ve got a point.
There is a tool for every purpose. So, what is a Web Intelligence report? Hands off? No interaction? Not asking for a full blown word processor. How about a text edit box similar to what I’m writing this post in - nothing fancy. Creating a template is another work around (ok for report standardization). In the end, you still have an archaic editor and have to resize and then align a barrage of text boxes with formatting only at the box content level. At our company we provide a report tab labeled “Introduction” in every WEBI document. The introduction provides an array of end-user information from purpose, targeted business processes, filter use, visualization descriptions, drilldown descriptions, last data refresh date, and any special handling requirements.
It’s not just a chart or a bare vertical block of data with no meaning - it’s a document. Or should you tell users to look at the data and figure it out on their own. I don’t think any companies do that. The reference is right there when they need it, and not having to find the documentation somewhere else or open another application on their desktop to view it. So, it makes sense to have a capable text editor and an easy way to enter basic text and move on to other complex development issues.
And then does WEBI provide for their ease at filtering and “slice and dice” of the data? If it doesn’t, you’ve forced their hand to use it as a data pump or ETL tool. I think WEBI does a good job of that… with minor limitations.
(I used some basic and desirable text editing in this post as examples only)
Always ask for more than you need. It stimulates discussion… leading to negotiation… and usually you get exactly what you wanted in the first place.
datawizard (BOB member since 2015-01-20)
You can do a lot of that by setting the text block to interpret the text as HTML. Then you can use all of your and tags all you want.
I’ve never done it, but I would imagine that building a text processor that is easy to use, works approximately the same in both the HTML and Java clients, exports nicely to both Excel and PDF, and doesn’t over-inflate either the .wid file size or the size of the application is not a trivial order.
Should they do it? Yeah, probably. I’d toss it on the wish list. But like I said before, I have a long list of things I’d rather see implemented first.
Lugh (BOB member since 2009-07-16)