Creating a New Report Using iReport

The Basics.

Click File à New Document (or Ctrl+N). You will get the following window.

This goes without saying as self explanatory. Give the name you want for the report. But There is one Major thing you want to remember.

When No Data is present Display the Static Text.

Most designers would require the report to display header information (static text such as Report Title, date) when there is no data to display. The report does not have these properties set by default. To do that you need to set the Right Option in the “More” Tab in the report creation window.

This can be set by a Java code too. But that’s another topic altogether. I find after developing a lot of reports I forget have always forgotten to set this option. And had to go back and set it.

The iReport Golden Rules

When In doubt go to JasperForge Forum.

Google and blogs like these are a lot of help, But there the community is larger and more likely that you’ll get a response from some of the Admins if your problem is really complicated.

See the iReport Examples.

They are a must have when you are using iReport. Your simple questions can be answered by looking at the examples which would save you a lot of time

Talk to the community, Help Others.

Mainly at the JasperForge forum. The same problems are posted over and over because people has slightly different variations of the same problem

Experiment.

There’s a lot of things to learn about iReport. The chances are that you may find some things very interesting

Starting Up

After working close to 6 months in developing reports using iReport with minimum or no guidance I decided to share my finding with the rest of the world.

If you want to download iReport go to SourceForge.