Chapter 19 - Odoo 15 Development Book

How to create Qweb based pdf reports

Qweb is a templating engine that converts XML to HTML. Mainly used to define report templates. Reports are defined based on report actions and report templates. The report action generates a report based on a Python function or a print button. We can create custom reports using report actions in Odoo.

Report Actions (ir.actions.report):

The code below is an example of a report action in Odoo 15. Create this XML file in the module report directory and add this file to the manifest.

<record id="action_report_vehicle_order" model="ir.actions.report">
  <field name="name">Vehicle Order</field>
  <field name="model">vehicle.report</field>
  <field name="report_type">qweb-pdf</field>
  <field name="report_name">vehicle.report_vehicle_order</field>
  <field name="report_file">vehicle.report_vehicle_order</field>
  <field name="print_report_name">'Vehicle Report - %s' % (object.name))</field>
  <field name="binding_model_id" ref="model_vehcicle_report"/>
  <field name="binding_type">report</field>
</record>

The definition of each field in the report operation is described below.

name: Mandatory field used to name the report.

model: Mandatory field, contains the related model where the data taken from.

report_type: Used to specify types of report qweb-pdf or qweb-html.

report_name: Mandatory field that specifies the external_id of the report template.

print_report_name: Optional, used to name the generated report file with a Python expression as desired.

binding_model_id: In some cases, the report needs to be printed from the view, and binding_model_id needs to be defined. For example, if the model is sale.order, then the binding_model_id is model_sale_order.

How to Create a Report Template?

Templates are created in HTML format. The layout is written in the <template> tag. The T-Call property allows you to use multiple templates within a single template. Corresponding is an example of a sample report template.

<template id="report_vehicle_order">
    <t t-call="web.html_container">
        <t t-foreach="docs" t-as="o">
            <t t-call="web.external_layout">
                <div class="page">
                    <h2>Sample Report</h2>
                    <p>span t-field="o.name"/></p>
                </div>
            </t>
        </t>
    </t>
</template>

In the example, report_vehicle_order is an external ID that needs to be defined in the report action. t-call=web.external_layout is used to insert Odoo's default web layout into the report.