Using iReport plugin for Jasper Reports in Netbeans

Jasper reports is a very useful frame work for genarating reports, saving them as PDF,etc. iReport make it more easy because we can design reports using graphical methods from it. Also it is available as a plugin for NetBeans. You can download iReport Netbeans plugin from here. there are for files in the Zip folder. You can install them by at one by selecting all of them when you select the plugin to install from Netbeans (If you don't know how to install a plugin for Netbeans search for a tutorial).

To use Jasper Reports in your application you have to add some libraries. But the problem is these libraries are heavily coupled with each other. So downloading each one is a very difficult task because there are problems like versions don't match, some libraries are outdated, etc.etc.

There is a easy method. After installing the plugin Netbeans will automatically add the Jasper Reports library to its library collection. But it is missing one important library. So you have to download the jar file named jasperreports-4.1.2.jar (version can be changed) from here.

Then you have to edit the existing Netbeans jasper reports Library. To do that select Tools--->Libraries from the Netbeans IDE. Then select JasperReports from left side and select add jar/Folder. Then select the downloaded jar file. Then click ok. Now you are ready to go. 

This website gives a good step by step tutorial on using iReports. But this use the ireport designer instead of the Netbeans plugin. In our case to add a jasper report to our Project right click on the corresponding package and select new>other>empty report. to add the dependencies right click on the libraries and select library--->jasperReports. 

I tried this on Netbeans 6.9. So there can be small differences. But this will give you a basic understanding.