A business needs documents and reports it can print: a printed invoice, a printed order, a printed report. This piece is about building a PDF report in Odoo.
What a PDF report is
A PDF report, in Odoo, is a printable document produced from the system's data: a document, in PDF form, that presents some of the system's data in a designed layout, ready to be printed or sent. A business needs such documents, the documents it produces from its records, an invoice, an order document, a report. A PDF report is how Odoo produces one.
Building a PDF report as a template
A developer builds a PDF report by defining it as a template. The report template defines what the document looks like: how the data is laid out, the structure and design of the document. The template is, in effect, the design of the document, into which the genuine data of a particular record, or records, is placed when the report is produced. So building a PDF report is, in large part, building its template, defining the document's layout and design. The templates for Odoo's PDF reports are defined using QWeb, Odoo's templating, which is significant enough to consider in its own right.
Building a good PDF report
Building a good PDF report is about producing a document that genuinely serves its purpose well. A PDF report is a document the business produces, often a document that goes to a customer, an invoice, an order document, so it should be a good document: clear, well laid out, presenting the genuine data properly, looking as the business wants its documents to look. The template should be built so the document is genuinely good. A PDF report is, in a sense, the business presenting itself through a document, and building it well means the document genuinely does that.
The PDF report and the data
A PDF report produces a document from the system's data, so the report is genuine and correct because the data is. The report template defines the layout; the genuine data, of the genuine record, fills it. So a PDF report, built well, is a true document: it presents the genuine, current data of the record it is produced for. This is part of the value of producing documents from the system, the documents are genuine, reflecting the real data, rather than separately maintained things that could be wrong.
Build it the Odoo way
Building a PDF report, like all Odoo development, should be done the Odoo way: PDF reports have an established way they are built in Odoo, defined as templates with QWeb, and a report built that way works properly within the framework. A developer building a PDF report should do it within Odoo's conventions, working with the framework. Following the established way is part of building the report well.
The takeaway
Building a PDF report in Odoo produces a printable document from the system's data, a document such as an invoice, an order document, or a report. A developer builds a PDF report by defining its template, the document's layout and design, into which the genuine data is placed, with the templates defined using QWeb. Build a good PDF report by making the document clear, well laid out, and genuinely good, since it is the business presenting itself. The report is a true document because it presents the genuine data, and it should be built the Odoo way. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.