External Styles in JasperReports

Question

I'm working on a system that includes a large number of reports, generated using JasperReports. One of the newer features is that you can define styles for reports.

From the available docs I believe there is some way to have an external file defining styles to use, and you can reference that in your jasper reports. This allows a single style to be used by multiple reports.

I can't find any concrete information on whether this is an actual feature, and if it is, how to use it. Does anyone know if it is possible to have external styles for jasper reports, and if so, how to do it?

Answer 1

Use JasperReport templates. A JasperReports template is one that ends in .jrtx, and may look similar to this (styles.jrtx):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE jasperTemplate
  PUBLIC "-//JasperReports//DTD Template//EN"
  "http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/dtds/jaspertemplate.dtd">

<jasperTemplate>
    <style name="Report Title" isDefault="false" hAlign="Center" fontSize="24" isBold="true"/>
    <style name="Heading 1" isDefault="false" fontSize="18" isBold="true"/>
    <style name="Heading 2" isDefault="false" fontSize="14" isBold="true"/>
</jasperTemplate>

and then in your .jrxml file, include it as a template:

...
<template><![CDATA["styles.jrtx"]]></template>
...

iReport also understands this, so your styles are imported and shown in iReport correctly (though I did notice sometimes it wouldn't pick them up an a reload or recompile was necessary).