OBIEE 12c: Change distance between analysis

Carsten Weber

Hi guys,

I was wondering, how to minimize the distance between two separate analysis within a dashboard since OBIEE 12.2.1.1.0 automatically creates a default space.

Example:

Edit Dashboard View:

PDF View:

I want to decrease the distance between my textboxes where you can see the arrows.

Can anyone please give me some advice. Thanks.

Christian Berg-0racle

Hi Carsten,

Sure you can. The whole GUI is completely configurable but first things first: Doing this is definitely something to do after having deployed a custom style and skin! If you start changing the core files - like most likely some people will be very quick to suggest - you risk losing your changes the very next time you apply a bundle patch or a new version.

So for the solution: Firebug or any browser dev tools are your friend. Example with sections:

Now by placing with the DOM inside your browser you can easily try out how things will look and then do them in your own custom style/skin.

Gianni wrote a nice bit about it here: https://gianniceresa.com/2017/02/obiee-12c-custom-style-using-shared-folder/

Important to not overlook:

Just a note: I would advise to start by trying keeping your custom CSS in custom.css if possible (even if it will require some “!important” syntax) instead of editing directly master.css, why? In this way you can easily rebase your style on a new one (different / updated version of Alta for example during an update/upgrade) instead of trying to remember what you changed in the master.css file etc.

Gianni Ceresa

Just a quick question: you mentioned "PDF view", so you want to reduce space on screen in your browser or want to reduce it to print out a nice PDF (or better looking at least) ?

Carsten Weber

@ Gianni: I want to print out a nice PDF since currently the empty space within a document is just wasted for no reason. I keep saying to our customers that this is not our fault

Gianni Ceresa

Be ready to spend lot of time for little result Carsten

PDF printing is kind of random ... You can easily spend 2-3 hours to print a single analysis nicely in PDF, so for a dashboard page it can only get worse ...

So far I do not have miracle solutions, every time you change 1 setting there are 5 other things moving in the PDF

Can Publisher help you? Like having a publisher version of the content you need to print out nice and you add a link to that on your dashboard? (at least in Publisher you have more control on what is where)

Carsten Weber

Unfortunately BI Publisher is not a solution for this task, since the specified analysis are from different kind of sources (direct SQL query, RDP / Essbase) and are merged on five dashboard pages which are combined within a briefing book for automated E-Mail transfer via Agents.

Anyway thanks for both of your awnsers Gianni and Christian.

Christian Berg-0racle

I see you two were having fun already. PDF'ing is pretty much a black box.

Re. BIP I think the hint was also more geared towards the Custom Print & Export Formats:

It warns you that not all might work but still worth a look:

Mind you I don't really use that stuff since pixel-perfect output is...well...not my cup of tea