There is no database connection required in this recipe.

If you have not made any database connection so far in your iReport installation, you will see an Empty datasource selected in a drop-down list just below the main iReport menu. This is the requirement to run this recipe. If any other option (for example, some database connection) is previously selected, then change it to Empty datasource from the drop-down list, as follows:

the following steps are very simple, and demonstrate how you can design a basic title for your report:

Switch to the XML tab and you will see the following JRXML code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jasperReport>
<!-- other JasperReports XML tags -->
<title>
<band height="79" splitType="Stretch">
<staticText>
<reportElement x="107" y="10" width="340" height="33"/>
<textElement>
<font fontName="Verdana" size="24"/>
</textElement>
<text><![CDATA[Monthly Customer Invoices]]></text>
</staticText>
<staticText>
<reportElement x="24" y="48" width="512" height="21"/>
<textElement>
<font size="13"/>
</textElement>
<text>
<![CDATA[All invoices for a specific customer, in a specific period of time and for a specific product]]>
</text>
</staticText>
</band>
</title>
<!-- other JasperReports XML tags -->
</jasperReport>

I have shown only the<title> tag in the code and omitted other JRXML tags that are not relevant to this discussion.

The<title> tag is a wrapper for both of the static text components you dropped into the Title section of your report. Each static text component is represented by a<staticText> child tag of the<title> tag. The first child of the<staticText> tag is named<reportElement>. A<reportElement> tag describes the position (using x and y attributes) and dimensions (using height and width attributes) of the static text component.

The x and y attributes control the position of a component. Both of these represent the positioning of the component with respect to the top-left corner of the Title section. You can play around by changing the value of the x and y attributes of the first<reportElement> tag to 0 in the JRXML code. The Designer tab will show that the main title of your report will move to the top-left corner of the Title section.

When you centered your main title horizontally in step 8 of this recipe, iReport calculated the values of these x and y attributes for you. This just shows the usefulness of iReport as a graphical report editor.

The height and width attributes control the size of a component. You can also play with these attributes to change the size of your title and subtitle.

The second child,<textElement>, of the<staticText> tag contains a<font> tag, which carries the text formatting information (for example, the name and size of font). You will notice that the<font> tag in the second<textElement> does not have the fontName attribute. That is because you did not change the font property of your subtitle. This means that the subtitle uses the default font, which is SansSerif.

You can see that the title (Monthly Customer Invoices) and subtitle (All invoices for a specific customer, in a specific period of time and for a specific product) of your report are wrapped inside two<text> tags, which go inside<staticText> tags. This means that whenever you drop a static text into the Title section of your report, iReport simply inserts a<staticText> child tag in the<title> tag of your report. Later, when you type the actual title, iReport simply wraps it in the<text> child tag of the<staticText> tag.

You can try editing the title directly from your JRXML. You will see that manual edits in the JRXML are reflected in the designer view of your report.

You can also play with the x, y, height, and width attributes from the Designer tab by changing the properties of your main title and subtitle. The x attribute appears as the Left property shown in the Properties window just below the palette of components. Similarly, the y attribute appears as the Top property. The height and width attributes appear as properties with the same name.