Using Text::Template and LaTeX isn't a bad idea for creating reports. BTW, what does "autonomously" mean in this context?

Update:

Instead of one of the templating modules you can also use this technique i cheated a while ago:

#!/usr/bin/env perl                                                   
+                          

use strict;
use warnings;

undef $/;

my %vars = ( name  => qq(Karl),
             color => qq(blue),
             fruit => qq(tomato)
           );

my $string = <DATA>;

$string =~ s/%%(.*?)%%/$vars{$1}/gs;

print $string;

__DATA__
Hello, my name is %%name%%!                                           
+                          
May i have a %%color%% %%fruit%% please?
[download]

Perhaps i posted this already but cannibalisation isn't a bad idea :-)

Please see also Re: Creation of PDF.

Regards, Karl

As you don't tell us what your problems with the LaTeχ approach are, it's hard to give good advice on how to proceed.

Personally, I would look at producing the appropriate HTML files instead of LaTeχ if that is easier. Both are still simply text files.

I think that LaTeχ still has the best facilities to automatically generate a table of contents, list of figures etc., but you can always program these yourself. I am unaware of any "framework" or set of libraries that is geared towards report production which has readymade reporting features like you seem to want. I would also look at Crystal Reports or Microsoft Access - these are applications geared mainly towards report generation and they have far more ways of producing fancy charts.

• Super Search this site for prior references to some or all of your pdf terms
• Big G: site:cpan.org pdf (and related) just for starter; brain-freeze on search cpan for all pdf modules
• ppm:

   1: Acme-PDF-rescale 0.2
   2: CAM-PDF 1.60
   3: CAM-PDF-Annot 0.06
   4: CAM-PDF-Annot-Parsed 0.01
   5: PDF 111
   6: PDF-API2 2.020
   7: PDF-API3 3.001
   8: PDF-Boxer 0.004
   9: PDF-EasyPDF 0_04
  10: PDF-Extract 3.04b
  11: PDF-FromImage 0.000003
  12: PDF-Imposition 0.03
  13: PDF-Labels 0.01
  14: PDF-Report 1.36
  15: PDF-Report-Table 1.01
  16: PDF-ReportWriter 1.5
  17: PDF-Reuse 0.35
  18: PDF-Reuse-OverlayChart 0.03
  19: PDF-Reuse-Tutorial 0.11
  20: PDF-Table 0.9.6_h3
  21: PDF-Writer 0.06
  22: PDF-Xtract 0.08
  23: PDFREP 2.20
  24: Pod-Pdf 1.2
  25: Template-Flute-PDF 0.0042
  26: Test-PDF 0.01
  27: Text-PDF 0.29a
  28: WebService-Trynt-PDF 0.01
  29: Wx-PdfDocument 0.13
  30: perl-pdf 0.06.1b-SREZIC-3
  31: pod2pdf 0.42

... and read the docs. Perhaps some of these approaches will be helpful.