Jasper is the most popular open source Java reporting Liberary. It can easly embed in to any Java application to deliver nive and formated print or web reporting. Users can create output streams for a file for further processing in other applications like Excel. Features of JasperReporting tool

1. Flexible Report Layout - JasperReports enables you to create almost any kind of report imaginable. Reports are built from a number of independently defined and formatted sections: Title, Page Header, Column Header, Group Header, Detail, Group Footer, Column Footer, Page Footer, and Summary. A report can contain any number of nested groups. On each group break, JasperReports inserts a Group Footer and the Group Header for the next group automatically, enabling multiple levels of sub-totals.
2. Flexible Output Options - We can get the diffrent format of outputs form the Jasper and delivers operational information to wherever we need it: onto the screen, onto the printer, and to other applications. Output formats include PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV, RTF (Word), TXT or XML files.
3. Flexible Data Sources - Data used to populate a report may be supplied either as input parameters from a parent application, or a from a data source defined within JasperReports. JasperReports includes JDBC-wrapped data providers for Relational Databases (RDBMS), JavaBeans (EJB, Hibernate), plain old Java objects (POJO), and XML data sources. A single report may use data from multiple data sources, which may be of different types.
4. We can defined and use Variables - JasperReports provides a comprehensive set of built-in variables and calculations, which can be extended with custom expressions.

What are the requirements for Jasper JasperReports has few external dependencies:

• Java JDK 1.3 or higher
• JDBC 2.0 driver (if RDBMS used)

We well see how to use the Jasper report in Java applicatons ... :)