Good day to all. I am currently building a program that covers the review of product warranty applications. I'm doing it in javaFX using Netbeans. The program has the following scenes:
a screen where the information of each guarantee request is entered. all the information is stored in a table in a database. The interaction between the program and the database is done, in effect, through JDBC.
a screen where you can see a table that shows all the requests that have been saved. if a row is selected, a button that carries the third scene all the data of the request that was selected is enabled.
a screen where all the data of the tests that are made to the selected guarantee application are entered. The results are also stored in another table in the database.
After the application is evaluated, a warranty review report must be generated. Currently this format is generated in pdf from excel. What I want to do is that from the data results of the tests stored in the database I can dynamically generate the pdf formats from the program in javaFX. Is there a plugin to write these documents automatically? I'm good at writing texts in LaTEX, so if there is a way to generate the latex format from the program and call the necessary information from the database, it would be perfect. Thanks in advance for the help. Any indication or idea is welcome.
It seems like you have two core requirements:
Fetch data from the database suitable for reporting
Generate the report(s) in PDF from JavaFX but can fall back to LaTEX
What you really need seems like a PDF library for Java. I can suggest iText and Docmosis as good options (please note I work for Docmosis) - both are commercial for commercial products so you would have to buy.
Assuming you are using one of these libraries, the process for each report is:
execute the query to fetch the appropriate data for the report
manipulate the data if required to make the reporting stage simple
generate the report
Using iText you would write the query, the manipulation code and then the code to layout the report including the data.
Using Docmosis you would write the query, possibly some manipulation code (Docmosis can also work directly with your ResultSet) and the code to execute the report. The layout is designed in the template (Word or Libre Office Writer).
When you mention writing "these documents automatically" I assume you mean creating the PDF file format, which iText and Docmosis can do. If you mean creating the report layout itself, then you always need to design/write something to make the report do what you require.
I hope that helps.
Thank you very much for your response Paul! I had found something related to the libraries you mentioned, and indeed something like what I'm looking for. I notice that you are more in the subject. then, you do not know bookstore, preferably free, that gives me the possibility of doing the following (pseudo code):
take the row from the database
Save the information of that row in the attributes of a created class.
create text1: "the guarantee with reference" + object.attribute1 + "was not approved in view of the physical revision test indicated that" + object.attribute2 + "
create text2: "..."
...
create the text n: "..."
take text 1 and place it in the header of the pdf document
Take text 2, put it in bold and place it in the subtitle
Generate a table and fill it with the content of text 3, 4 ...
compile all information as a pdf, (word file, xls or others if possible)
I am clear that with the libraries that you recommend you can easily make items from
1 to 8, but I do not know if it is possible to enter the texts within a template created, so that the library accommodates all the texts in the respective zones of the template file. I imagine that this can easily be done with Latex, since everything is written in plain text.
I found a library called Java LaTeX Report (JLR) that allows me to do what I want. This information may be useful to someone. Thank you again for your answer Paul, if you consider the libraries that you mention do the job more easily than JLR please let me know!
Related
I am using jasper Reoprt Ireport 3.0 for Generating excel. my problem is I have One text field in that i want to keep below data which is coming from my database.
**Disclaimer: Please note that in case of disease conditions which can have both Acute and Chronic manifestations, they are considered as Chronic illness for analysis keeping in view the objective of the report.
Actually in jasper reoprt summary area i have given one text field but it is too small too keep this above line data. but still I want to keep whole data in small field in excel .
because normaly when we are typing in excel cell anything and when it become overflows then also it's looking like it has been typed in next cell but ,when we are clicking in another cell it will show in that cell only.whole data will come in that small cell without wrapping text filed.
just like it i want also through I-report 3.0 . I tried so much but I didn't find solution so i am posting here . please suggest if you faced same problem and got solution too. it will be helpful.
I don't want to merge it in multiple columns because if it will merge multiple columns then for calculating value through Excel column selection will be a problem. and V lookup we cant do so.
if the data in any cell is greater than 2 rows, then the remaining data just gets cut off and not displayed.
Maybe it is time to update. At this time JasperReports 6.x is the version to go, but ...
From my expierience JasperReports is the wrong tool to generate "clean" Excel documents. You get always layout informations in it that result in the behaviour you describe.
To get a clean Excel document I would suggest to go with Apache-Poi (https://poi.apache.org/) and generate it directly or simply to generate a CSV - file which can be easily opened using Excel.
I have created a program that should one day become a PDF editor
It's purpose will be saving GUI's textual content to the PDF, and loading it from it. GUI resembles text editor, but it only has certain fields(JTextAreas, actually).
It can look like this (this is only one page, it can have many more, also upper and lower margins are cut out of the picture) It should actually resemble A4 in pixel size.
I have looked around for a bit for PDF libraries and found out that iText could suit my PDF creating needs, however, if I understood it correct, it retirevs text from a whole page as a string which won't work for me, because I will need to detect diferent fields/paragaphs/orsomething to be able to load them back into the program.
Now, I'm a bit lazy, but I don't want to spend hours going trough numerus PDF libraries just to find out that they won't work for me.
Instead, I'm asking someone with a bit more Java PDF handling experience to recommend me one according to my needs.
Or maybe recommend me how to add invisible parts to PDF which will help my program to determine where is it exactly situated insied a PDF file...
Just to be clear (I formed my question wrong before), only thing I need to put in my PDF is text, and that's all I need to later be able to get out. My program should be able to read PDF's which he created himself...
Also, because of the designated use of files created with this program, they need to be in the PDF format.
Short Answer: Use an intermediate format like JSON or XML.
Long Answer: You're using PDF's in a manner that they wasn't designed for. PDF's were not designed to store data; they were designed to present and format data in an portable form. Furthermore, a PDF is a very "heavy" way to store data. I suggest storing your data in another manner, perhaps in a format like JSON or XML.
The advantage now is that you are not tied to a specific output-format like PDF. This can come in handy later on if you decide that you want to export your data into another format (like a Word document, or an image) because you now have a common representation.
I found this link and another link that provides examples that show you how to store and read back metadata in your PDF. This might be what you're looking for, but again, I don't recommend it.
If you really insist on using PDF to store data, I suggest that you store the actual data in either XML or RDF and then attach that to the PDF file when you generate it. Then you can read the XML back for the data.
Assuming that your application will only consume PDF files generated by the same application, there is one part of the PDF specification called Marked Content, that was introduced precisely for this purpose. Using Marked Content you can specify the structure of the text in your document (chapter, paragraph, etc).
Read Chapter 14 - Document Interchange of the PDF Reference Document for more details.
We are going to use iText to create a large report. There will be a lot of static text and images that will be the same for every report. We will then insert dynamic data from a database into the report. The static data and the dynamic data will be mixed together when the report is finished. What is the best way to handle the static data. We are going to use a java servlet in a web application for the creation of the report. We want the report to be sent to the web page immediately, so performance is critical.
These are some of the ideas I had. Not sure if any of these are good ideas.
1.) Create a PDF with the static content then insert the dynamic data. If I go this way how would I know where to insert the dynamic data? Is it possible to bookmark place to insert data?
2.) Get the static data from a database. This seems like it would be difficult trying to design a database with static content that would have to consider things like pages, paragraphs, headings, images. I would also think that this would not be great for performance if the website gets hit hard.
3.) Cache the static content in the servlet context. This would seem to help performance but would still have the same design issues as the database.
I would love some opinions on the best way to store large amounts of static text when creatig a PDF using iText.
Thanks for your help
Doug
I am not sure if the best way to do it, but this worked well for me in a similar situation, I created a template file that I read into code, and in the template I had hash tagged variable holders that I used to find a location and replace with dynamic text from whatever source. For example:
Hello #CUSTOMER_NAME#, Thank you for the purchase of #RECENT_PURCHASES# on
#RECEIPT_DATE#, for a total value of #RECEIPT_TOTAL#. ...
Like I said, it probably isn't ideal, but it really well for my needs.
I'm in the early stages of a note-taking application for android and I'm hoping that somebody can point me to a nice solution for storing the note data.
Ideally, I'm looking to have a solution where:
Each note document is a separate file (for dropbox syncing)
A note can be composed of multiple pages
Note pages can have binary data (such as images)
A single page can be loaded without having to parse the entire document into memory
Thread-safety: Multiple reads/writes can occur at the same time.
XML is out (at least for the entire file), since I don't have a good way to extract a single page at a time. I considered using zip files, but (especially when compressed) I think they'd be stuck loading the entire file as well.
It seems like there should be a Java library out there that does this, but my google-fu is failing me. The only other alternative I can think of is to make a separate sqlite database for every note.
Does anybody know of a good solution to this problem? Thanks!
Seems like a relational database would work here. You just need to play around with the schema a little.
Maybe make a Pages table with each page including, say, a field for the document it belongs to and a field for its order in the document. Pages could also have a field for binary data, which might be contained in another table. If the document itself has additional data, maybe you have a table for documents too.
I haven't used SQLite transactions on an Android device, but it seems like that would be a good way to address thread safety.
I would recommend using SQLite to store the documents. Ultimately, it'll be easier than trying to deal with file I/O every time you access the note. Then, when somebody wants to upload to dropbox, you generate the file on the fly and upload it. It would make sense to have a Notes table and a pages table, at least. That way you can load each page individually and a note is just a collection of pages anyway. Additionally, you can store images as BLOBS in the database for a particular page. Basically, if you only want one type of content per page, then you would have, in the pages table, something like an id column and a content column. Alternatively, if you wanted to support something that is more complex such as multiple types of content then you would need to make your pages a collection of something else, like "entities."
IMO, a relational database is going to be the easiest way to accomplish your requirement of reading from particular pages without having to load the entire file.
I'm developing a desktop software to manage people and telephones, and also to generate (export) a list of telephones (also with a summary of the cities) that can be printed (like pdf). The part of telephones management is ready and was made with java and swt/jface. Exporting the list in a print friendly format is what has become an issue.
I tried exporting the list in HTML with CSS, but the result is not the same in different browsers.
I was thinking about generating it in LaTeX, but creating an style is getting too complicated (need an A7 page size, smaller fonts...).
What file format can be used to export this list? Is there an easy way to generate printable stuff?
Edit: forgot to mention that the file will be sent to a company to be printed.
Thanks!
Generate a pdf, it will look the same no matter what browser they use. You can use iText to create the pdf, it is fairly straight forward for a simple pdf.
You could just draw an image, it will stay the same on different systems and its easy to print. by drawing it, you can style it like you imagine, without learning any document format. It should be easy to draw a simple table.
Plain text is a very friendly format for me. Altough, this could be done with HTML and CSS, if you keep the style complexity level to a minimum. Try reading:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/07/the-principles-of-cross-browser-css-coding/
And be careful when choosing your properties!