How can I export report to PDF/A-1a, PDF/A-1b?

Question

Generating PDF/A in jasper-report, contains numerous pitfalls and is not supported in some versions of jasper-report. This is why I have decided to pass this Question-Answer post, indicating the steps and library version necessary to export a simple report with a graph to PDF/A

Sample data (usersRep.csv)

+----------------+--------+
|      User      |  Rep   |
+----------------+--------+
| Jon Skeet      | 854503 |
| Darin Dimitrov | 652133 |
| BalusC         | 639753 |
| Hans Passant   | 616871 |
| Me             |   5640 |
+----------------+--------+

Sample jrxml (reputation.jrxml)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jasperReport xmlns="http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/jasperreports" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/jasperreports http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/xsd/jasperreport.xsd" name="reputation" pageWidth="595" pageHeight="842" columnWidth="555" leftMargin="20" rightMargin="20" topMargin="20" bottomMargin="20" uuid="a88bd694-4f90-41fc-84d0-002b90b2d73e">
    <queryString>
        <![CDATA[]]>
    </queryString>
    <field name="User" class="java.lang.String"/>
    <field name="Rep" class="java.lang.Long"/>
    <columnHeader>
        <band height="20" splitType="Stretch">
            <staticText>
                <reportElement x="0" y="0" width="100" height="20" uuid="9e7b5f50-5795-4c95-a122-f14f2e3f9366"/>
                <box leftPadding="3" bottomPadding="0" rightPadding="3">
                    <pen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <topPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <leftPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <bottomPen lineWidth="0.5" lineStyle="Double"/>
                    <rightPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                </box>
                <textElement verticalAlignment="Middle">
                    <font fontName="SansSerif" isBold="true"/>
                </textElement>
                <text><![CDATA[User]]></text>
            </staticText>
            <staticText>
                <reportElement x="100" y="0" width="100" height="20" uuid="4a6f0a2a-d9b5-4e74-a9e8-0f965336f2bf"/>
                <box leftPadding="3" bottomPadding="0" rightPadding="3">
                    <pen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <topPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <leftPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <bottomPen lineWidth="0.5" lineStyle="Double"/>
                    <rightPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                </box>
                <textElement textAlignment="Right" verticalAlignment="Middle">
                    <font fontName="SansSerif" isBold="true"/>
                </textElement>
                <text><![CDATA[Reputation]]></text>
            </staticText>
        </band>
    </columnHeader>
    <detail>
        <band height="20" splitType="Stretch">
            <textField>
                <reportElement x="0" y="0" width="100" height="20" uuid="8ff583b9-88dc-4726-85e1-16d79de78095"/>
                <box leftPadding="3" bottomPadding="0" rightPadding="3">
                    <pen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <topPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <leftPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <bottomPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <rightPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                </box>
                <textElement verticalAlignment="Middle">
                    <font fontName="SansSerif"/>
                </textElement>
                <textFieldExpression><![CDATA[$F{User}]]></textFieldExpression>
            </textField>
            <textField>
                <reportElement x="100" y="0" width="100" height="20" uuid="ebd33b2f-7297-41c2-9dc7-78ff472890c4"/>
                <box leftPadding="3" bottomPadding="0" rightPadding="3">
                    <pen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <topPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <leftPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <bottomPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                    <rightPen lineWidth="0.25"/>
                </box>
                <textElement textAlignment="Right" verticalAlignment="Middle">
                    <font fontName="SansSerif"/>
                </textElement>
                <textFieldExpression><![CDATA[$F{Rep}]]></textFieldExpression>
            </textField>
        </band>
    </detail>
    <pageFooter>
        <band height="140">
            <pieChart>
                <chart isShowLegend="false">
                    <reportElement x="225" y="-670" width="320" height="140" uuid="23bd26a6-04a4-406f-8a1a-5e1b260cb75d"/>
                    <chartTitle/>
                    <chartSubtitle/>
                    <chartLegend/>
                </chart>
                <pieDataset>
                    <keyExpression><![CDATA[$F{User}]]></keyExpression>
                    <valueExpression><![CDATA[$F{Rep}]]></valueExpression>
                </pieDataset>
                <piePlot>
                    <plot/>
                    <itemLabel/>
                </piePlot>
            </pieChart>
        </band>
    </pageFooter>
</jasperReport>

Java code to export to PDF (reputation.pdf)

JasperReport report = JasperCompileManager.compileReport("reputation.jrxml");
JRCsvDataSource datasource = new JRCsvDataSource("usersRep.csv");
datasource.setFieldDelimiter(';');
datasource.setUseFirstRowAsHeader(true);

JasperPrint jasperPrint = JasperFillManager.fillReport(report, new HashMap<String, Object>(),datasource);

JRPdfExporter exporter = new JRPdfExporter();
exporter.setExporterInput(new SimpleExporterInput(jasperPrint));
exporter.setExporterOutput(new SimpleOutputStreamExporterOutput("reputation.pdf"));
SimplePdfExporterConfiguration configuration = new SimplePdfExporterConfiguration();
configuration.setMetadataAuthor("Me and only me");
exporter.setConfiguration(configuration);
exporter.exportReport();

This export the report to a pdf, what do I need to do to generate a PDF/A-1a?

Answer 1

JasperReports Library 4.1.2.3 or higher is needed (with discontinued support in 6.0.0 see NullPointerException at the end).

These steps are need to generate a PDF/A, they can be achieved both by java code or by setting jrxml property to root tag (jasper-server support). I will show both but only one method is necessary.

Set PDF/A Conformance

java

configuration.setPdfaConformance(PdfaConformanceEnum.PDFA_1A); // or PdfaConformanceEnum.PDFA_1B

jrxml

<property name="net.sf.jasperreports.export.pdfa.conformance" value="pdfa1a" />

Set ICC Profile

to avoid JRPdfaIccProfileNotFoundException: The ICC profile is not available to the JVM

java

configuration.setIccProfilePath("srgb.icc");

jrxml

<property name="net.sf.jasperreports.export.pdfa.icc.profile.path" value="srgb.icc" />

Embed all font used in reports, using font-extensions

If you still have error

com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfXConformanceException: All the fonts must be embedded. This one isn't: Helvetica

include a default style in the jrxml indicating fontName that is included in font extension, example

<style name="default" isDefault="true" fontName="DejaVu Sans"/>

Remove transparent objects and layers (Optional Content Groups) they are not allowed

to avoid PdfXConformanceException: Transparency is not allowed

In example the chart element must be Opaque and to avoid transparency on the labels you can implement a JRChartCustomizer

public class NoTransparencyCustomizer implements JRChartCustomizer{
    @Override
    public void customize(JFreeChart chart, JRChart jrchart) {
        PiePlot plot = (PiePlot) chart.getPlot();
        plot.setLabelShadowPaint(Color.GRAY);       
    }
}

Set Tagged and tag language (unnecessary for PDF/A-1b)

java

configuration.setTagged(true);
configuration.setTagLanguage("en-us");

jrxml

<property name="net.sf.jasperreports.export.pdf.tagged" value="true" />
<property name="net.sf.jasperreports.export.pdf.tag.language" value="en-us"/>

Result

This is the result implementing the above, switching fontName to DejaVu Sans and using the bundled jasperreports-fonts.jar as font-extension. It has been validated successfully on pdf-tools for both PDF/A-1a and PDF/A-1b

No piece of the cake for me

Discontinued support In jasper report version 6.0.0 a NullPointerException at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.internal.PdfA1Checker.checkPdfObject was always thrown. This has been solved in 6.0.4 and above see Jasper report tracker.