Reporter runs in a runtime environment (runimage), enabling you to view graphical report definitions and run any reports stored in the Reporter catalogs. This requires access to a database with installed reports. When a report is run within Reporter, the graphical definition is converted to a dynamic 4GL procedure which runs an SQL query and calls API functions to prepare an output file that can then be printed with the repprint.exe utility.

Reporter supports the use of global temporary tables and variable table names, which may be passed as parameters to the report. This is achieved through the use of example tables. A table that takes part in a query may be one of three example types:

For more information, see How You Can Use Global Temporary Tables and Variable Table Names.