Jasper Report PDF Encoding

You can also set "net.sf.jasperreports.default.pdf.encoding" in code like this:

JRProperties.setProperty("net.sf.jasperreports.default.pdf.encoding", "Cp1250");

Update

From the comment: 6 years later, the correct way to display character in Jasper Reports is using font-extensions, e.g. see https://stackoverflow.com/a/33941102/254109

Original answer

Make a file jasperreports.properties, put it in the class path and set the PDF encoding.

net.sf.jasperreports.default.pdf.encoding=Cp1250

Or make base style in a report, set what you need, and all other styles derive from this style, i.e. they have an attribute style="base".

You have to embed UTF-8 fonts in the PDF.

1. get the utf-8 fonts and place them on your classpath
2. for older jasper-reports version use a custom style and apply it to all texts
3. before printing, call style.setPdfFontName("/com/package/fonts/times.ttf");

For newer versions the PdfFontName is deprecated instead of another way of doing this, but I can't find it now - look it up yourself.

Another workaround might be found here