With Pentaho Report Designer, you have pixel level control of your individual elements within a report. Grid and guide lines may appear within each report canvas band, which make it simple to align and configure locations of the elements.
By default, the report grid is hidden from view. To enable the grid, enable the menu item View | Grids | Show. The grid presents itself in point units (also known as pixel units), with a light gray grid line displayed every five pixels, along with a darker shade guide line presented every 25 pixels.
Grid lines are useful for visual feedback of alignment, as well as providing a method to snap elements to the grid. This makes aligning of elements a simple exercise.
To adjust the ruler unit to centimeters, millimeters, inches, or picas, go to the View | Units sub-menu. The default grid size may be adjusted from five pixels to another number by launching the grid size dialog. Select the View | Grids | Settings menu item...