How to embed PDF into a report output

Use case

We occasionally receive questions about how to embed or attach an existing PDF file to a TIBCO JasperReports^® report output.

Suggested approach

TIBCO JasperReports^® library does not provide an option to embed an external PDF file into a report. The closest option available out of the box is to add a link to an external PDF file to your report.

However you may consider extending the default functionality by implementing a generic element handler. A good place to start with this approach is to take a look at the Generic Element sample available with JasperReports library distribution: 

http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/sample.reference/genericelement/index.html 

To give a little more context, Generic elements are built-in placeholders to be declared in a report template at report design time, in order to reserve space for special content available only at export time, generated in a specific manner by different exporters. At report filling time generic elements are processed into generic print elements that reserve room for their future content and evaluate report element expressions. Expression results will be stored as parameter values in the generic print element.