JasperReports 3.5 for Java Developers: Create, Design, Format, and Export Reports with the World's Most Popular Java Reporting Library

Do you want to create easily understood, professional, and powerful reports from disordered, scattered data using a free, open source Java class library? If your answer is yes, this book on JasperReports is what you are looking for. JasperReports is the world's most popular embeddable Java open source reporting library, providing Java developers with the power to easily create rich print and web reports.

The book has been fully updated to use JasperReports 3.5, the latest version of JasperReports. Previously accepted techniques that have now been deprecated have been replaced with their modern counterparts. All examples in the book have been updated to use XML schemas for report templates. Coverage of new data sources that JasperReports now supports has been added to the book. Additionally, JasperReports can now export reports to even more formats than before and exporting reports to these new formats is covered in this new edition of the book.

This book shows you exactly how to get started, and develop the skills to get the most from JasperReports. It introduces you to the latest version of JasperReports, and gets you creating complex and elegant reports.

The book steers you through each point of report setup, to creating, designing, formatting, and exporting reports with data from a wide range of data sources, and integrating JasperReports with other Java frameworks.

Starting with the basics of adding reporting capabilities to your application and creating report templates, you will first see how to produce your reports through the use of JRXML files, custom ANT targets, and then preview them in both the web browser and the native browser of JasperReports.

Getting data into your reports is the next step, and you will see how to get data from a range of data sources, not only databases, but XML files, and Java Objects, among others.

You will create better looking reports with formatting and grouping, as well as adding graphical elements to your reports. You will export your reports to a range of different formats, including PDF and XML.

Creating reports will be made even easier with a walkthrough of the iReport Designer visual designing tool. To round things off, you will see how to integrate your reports with other Java frameworks, using Spring or Hibernate to get data for the report, and Java Server Faces or Struts for presenting the report.

All examples have been updated to use XML schemas. New export formats, such as OpenDocument Text, and new data sources now supported by JasperReports are now covered in this updated edition.

About the Author

David Heffelfinger is the Chief Technology Officer of Ensode Technology, LLC, a software consulting firm based in the greater Washington DC area. He has been professionally designing and developing software since 1995. David has been using Java as his primary programming language since 1996, and has worked on many large scale projects for several government and commercial clients, including IBM, Verizon, the US Department of Homeland Security, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the US Department of Defense.

David is the author of Java EE 5 Development Using GlassFish Application Server and Java EE 5 with NetBeans 6 and JasperReports For Java Developers, both by Packt Publishing.

David has a Masters degree in Software Engineering from Southern Methodist University. David is the Editor in Chief of Ensode.net, a web site about Java, Linux, and other technology topics.