Looking for an alternative to JasperReports [closed]

Answer 1

As an alternative to iReport you can try JasperWave designer for JasperReports. To address the second issue why not to write some helper java code that translate beans structure to report structure? In any case it is always not easy to map java objects to some kind of flat structure. Create some java interface that will hide the complexity of underlying beans structure. Not sure that the second issue is the the reason to look for alternative reporting solution.

Answer 2

If time is of the essence (as is usually the case when your boss hands you something) I would recommend checking out iText (main site is here).

It is very, very simple to learn (you can have it up, running, and generating simple "Hello, PDF!" examples in 20 minutes) and can export just about anything into PDF: tables, lists, charts, images, hypertext, etc.

By my own admission, JasperReports implementing its JRBeanCollectionDataSource is a more elegant, flexible, permanent solution for you. But if you need a quick-n-dirty library to just produce PDFs, and looming deadlines are drawing nigh, I would download the iText JAR and have at it.

The site is loaded with practical code examples for just about anything you would want to accomplish.

Unlike JasperReports, iText is not a report generator. Its just a PDF generator (which, from what I can tell in your question, sounds like all you need). So, for any particular Bean, you would just select the properties you want exported to the PDF invoice, and use the Chunk, Paragraph, etc. classes to append them to the document as you need:

// Your POJO/Bean/VO
Employee oEmp = new Employee();

Document oInvoicePdf = new Document();
PdfWriter.getInstance(document, new FileOutputStream("/invoices/2011/Invoice201.pdf"));
document.open();
document.add(new Chunk("Employee's name is : " + oEmp.getName()));
document.close();

Even if this is not what you're looking for, at all costs I would recommend you steer clear of Apache PdfBox. In my humble opinion, it is pure evil and will only break your heart.

Hope this helps, and best of luck!