Chapter 2. Installing BIRT

I'm sure that after discussing the features of BIRT, you're excited to jump right in. Well, you're in luck, as I am equally excited to show how these features will help you. BIRT is a powerful application to meet one's reporting needs, but the first step is to get BIRT and install it. This can be a bit daunting, as BIRT comes in so many different flavors.

In this chapter, we will discuss the various methods of downloading BIRT and installing it. Specifically, we will cover the following:

• Installing the standalone BIRT report designer
• Installing the BIRT Eclipse Plugin through the Eclipse update manager
• Installing the BIRT Eclipse Plugin Manually
• Building BIRT from source