What is the difference between report painter and report writer in SAP?

Report Painter and Report Writer is generally used for creating FI reports.
Report Writer:
The Report Writer is a tool for creating reports that meet specific business and
reporting requirements.
Report Writer enables you to report on data from multiple applications. Using
functions such as sets, variables, formulas, cells and key figures, you can create
complex reports that meet specific reporting requirements.
When working with Report Writer, you can use certain functions that are not
supported by Report Painter. These functions include:
Multidimensional column structures
User-defined definition of inactive row and column combinations
Enhanced functions for using cells in column formulas.
Report Painter:
The Report Painter is similar to the Report Writer, but is simpler to use. Most of the
functions in the Report Writer are also available in the Report Painter. The Report
Painter is based on the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) principle. The
main components of report painter are characteristics and basic key figure.
Characteristics must be defined in your report, either as data selection criteria, report
rows, or report columns. To improve processing time, you should specify all
characteristics in general data selection that are not needed in the report rows or
columns.
The process flow for report writer/report painter is almost same and is as following.
Create Set -> Select library -> Define report -> Check report -> Assign report to
report group -> Generate report -> Execute report.
Advantages of the Report Painter include:

Easy and flexible report definition

Report definition without using sets

Direct layout control

The big advantage of report painter is the time it costs to build a report. Comparing to
ABAP programming based report this way of building a report is much faster and the
risk of selecting the wrong data is almost zero. You can compare it to making a query.
There are several ways of displaying the report. You can also select the MS Excel
function, so the reports starts in excel. Very useful function.
You can use report painter for almost every report you want to create but it's mostly
used for financial and materials management reports . Also you can easily import and
export the report to other clients.
Procedure for creating a Report Painter report
Tcode:
GRR1,
FGRP - It shows a sap menu structure only for report painter/writer.
You can only use this transaction code from the startup screen of sap
GR31 for report writer
Report Painter is the "simple" version of Report Writer.
When you define reports you must assign them to a library. The library defines which
characteristics, basic key figures and key figures may be used in a report.
If you include reports in report groups, they must be assigned to the same library. The
names of reports and parallel reports are only unique together with the library name.
A report group, on the other hand, is uniquely identified by its name.
Libraries can be used, for example, to

distinguish production and test reports

differentiate between reports in different user groups

collect standard SAP reports

form report classes

In a library, you collect the characteristics, basic key figures, and predefined columns
from the report table, which you need for your Report Painter or Report Writer
reports. The table name is stored in the header of each library.

Characteristics are non-numerical fields. They represent criteria with which

you can select data records. Examples of characteristics are the controlling
area and fiscal year.

Basic key figures are numeric fields, which can be evaluated in a report.
Examples include overall costs and activity quantities.

Key figures consist of a basic key figure and one or more characteristics. They
are used for the fast definition of frequently-used columns. Examples include
total actual costs for the current fiscal year or plan fixed costs for the previous
fiscal year.

Transaction Code:
The Transaction code to create report painter is GRR1 and for creating report writer it
is GR31.
Example are Trial Balance report, Consolidated Balance sheet, Profit (loss).
Report painter
GRR1, GRR2, GRR3
GS11, 12, 13 for variable
GS01, 01, 03 for sets
GR51, 52, 53 for report group
GR21, 22, 23 for library
For export-import:
- Any new variables (GS17 - Export, GS18 - Import)

- New sets (GS07 - Export, GS08 - Import)

- New report (GR37 - Export, GR38 - Import)
- New report group (GR57 - Export, GR58 - Import)
- New library (GR27 - Export, GR28 - Import)