Before I'll start - I've looked at the following links and none of them worked for me (my assumption is that I'm doing something wrong):
- https://appmediation.com/how-to-add-local-libraries-to-gradle/ 
- How do you add local .jar file dependency to build.gradle.kt file? 
- Gradle: how do I include a local jar from a dependent java project in an Android build? 
I'm trying to add Batik to my existing Gradle project, from what I could tell this library is not published over Maven repository.
My project structure is as follow:
- root
  - libs
    - batik-1.12
  - src
    - main
      - java
      - resources
  - build.gradle
  - settings.gradle
My build.gradle file looks as follow:
plugins {
    id 'java'
}
group 'org.example'
version '1.0-SNAPSHOT'
repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
    compile fileTree(include: ['*.jar'], dir: 'libs')
    testCompile group: 'junit', name: 'junit', version: '4.12'
}
I copied the example page of Batik from this link: https://xmlgraphics.apache.org/batik/using/svg-generator.html
However, this code cannot be compiled as it does not recognize Batik's source.
 
    