Graphical Printing/Report Writing

With the emergence of Totem, developers are no longer constrained by the traditional limitations of COBOL and its graphical printing capabilities. A report writer is effective for analyzing selected data from a file system or database. Using the report writer, you can organize your report to maximize visual impact allowing you to quickly extract key information, which will, in turn, assist you in making key decisions and boost your productivity. Totem enables you to create complex, graphic reports in a native COBOL environment. COBOL is no longer limited to plain textual reports or the use of a third party report writing tool. Totem allows you, as a COBOL user, to painlessly compose graphics without connecting to other applications, adding drivers, or importing forms. Furthermore, since Totem still writes the report entirely in COBOL, you do not need to worry about the syntax and concepts of any other programming languages. Totem is a pure COBOL tool that places a vast layout of components at your control, including tables, pictures, font styles, section controls, and more.

Of equal, if not greater, importance than the design of your reports, is the dissemination of those reports. As you pass your reports through your organization to the right people, paper-based reports can often waste resources (i.e. printing, copying, and distribution time). A far more efficient solution is to distribute those reports over the Web. Totem's Graphical Report Writer enables you to generate complex graphical reports in both HTML and text formats. This Web enabled distribution ensures faster data access, lower costs, wider circulation, and can contribute to a greater return on your investment. You need only use Totem's simple screen functions to design your report, then Totem will automatically generate that code and write the additional code that will enable any browser to recognize the application in either HTML or text format. No additional coding or software is needed. Totem writes the code for you and enables you to distribute your reports over your existing browser.

Totem thus provides you with the flexibility to use a pure COBOL environment to quickly and easily generate complex reports, such as invoices, with pictures and other new formatting features and to distribute those reports in cyberspace or in paper form.

The HTML output report created by the Totem Report Writer: