Enhance Legacy COBOL Applications with Graphical Reports

Estimated Reading Time: 1 Minutes

292 Support KB Author January 7, 2026 isCOBOL IDE 4419

Every legacy COBOL application can be significantly improved by adding graphical reports.

isCOBOL users can easily achieve this using the IDE Report Designer. This tool offers several key advantages:

Integrated graphical designer (WYSIWYG) within the IDE
Simple drag-and-drop graphical controls in reports
Easy population of Working-Storage or File variables into reports
Automatic preview without writing any code
Export to PDF with no coding required
Export to Excel with no coding required

Attached, you’ll find a tutorial on how to use the IDE Report Designer.

Additionally, we’ve created a YouTube video that walks you through creating a report with the IDE Report Designer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT5v2UM2YN0&t=3s

You can also explore a sample program included with the IDE installation under:
%ISCOBOL%/sample/projects/report-designer