Complex dynamic content

[mitch_3]

Looking for ideas on how to solve this.

The application is a packing slip for an order to be shipped. The order contents are rendered in the detail section.  Below the details, the customer wants a diagram of the boxes that will be used in the order.  Within each box diagram is a list of the contents of that box.  The person filling the order will use the diagram to know which items to put in which box.  We want to use as little paper as needed, so the diagrams should fill a row on the page and then flow to the next row and/or page as needed. The box diagrams can be different sizes due to different boxes being used and to order contents.

Conceptually, I'd like to provide Jasper reports with a list of boxes and tell it: put these here in the report, as many as will fit on each row, flowing to the next row and page as needed.

I tried HTML markup in a text element, but it doesn't understand tables.

I'm currently experimenting with generating SVG content for an Image. I can create the diagrams and content easily that way, but getting them to flow as noted above seems impossible. I can only think to make it work by making the band a fixed height, which doesn't make good use of the page in all situations.

I'm struggling.  Any ideas are welcome.