DBtoPDF is a free report-generating engine that sits on a web server and produces reports in PDF format from database queries.

DBtoPDF uses the print formatter FOP engine from the Apache XML Project

How it works:

The user brings up a web page from which he selects a report. A HTML form comes up for entering input parameters specific to that report. When the parameters are submitted, these parameters are sent to DBtoPDF servlet, which performs a query and generates a PDF file which is sent back to the user.

Features:

- generate PDF output on the fly.
- many options allows you to create professional-looking reports.
- entirely written in Java
- headers and footers that automatically repeat on all pages
- can handle parameterized reports
- table columns are sized automatically
- runs on any platform that supports the Java Virtual Machine
- no expensive application-server required
- can keep the connection "alive" between the application and the database
- uses connection pooling from a better perfomance

License

Setting Up and Running:

Any Web server that supports servlets should be able to run DBtoPDF.

You will need to determine how to configure your servlet engine.

- download and install FOP engine from http://xml.apache.org
- run the FopServlet
- download

DBtoPDF.zip

and extract the files in the following manner:
Place the example html files in a html document directory on your Web server.
Place all .class files in the appropriate Servlets directory on your web server.
- Modify the initial arguments of the servlets.properties file.
tomcat (web.xml, init-param):
param-name: properties
param-value: C:/jakarta-tomcat-3.2.1/webapps/examples/WEB-INF/DBtoPDF.properties

jrun (servlet.properties):
servlet DBtoPDF.Servlet.args=properties=C:/Programme/Live Software/JRunIIS/properties/SQLServlet.properties

- Edit DBtoPDF.properties and modify the JDBC Driver and Database URL properties to match your environment.
- Add the JDBC driver jar files to the Servlet engine's classpath or setup your ODBC-datasource.
add to wrapper.properties(Informix example in Tomcat):
wrapper.class_path=c:\jdbc15\lib\ifxjdbc.jar


Look at the document source and the properties of the examples to see how it works.

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