Postscript is a page description scripting language. In one sense it's just text. If you have a PS version of the original Word template and the PS includes place holder text for the merge fields then the job "simply" becomes: use Perl to replace the merge fields in the template PS file with the merge field entries from the input data.

I've never used PostScript::Simple nor looked at it. However Perl is pretty good at manipulating text files and both the PS and input data files are text so maybe you don't need the module, or maybe the module makes life easier. Kinda sounds like your job to find out :-D.

Seems to me the exercise isn't about Perl, but is more a test of your programming skills which ought to transcend the specific tools you are asked to use.

cmiller2005:

OK, then, use Win32::OLE to save the document as an .EPS file. The Postscript::Simple module has an importeps method that apparently lets you put an EPS image on the same page. So you can create some postscript with your perl script, then import your template on top of it. I think that ought to work.

Take a look at the example.pl script that comes with Postscript::Simple, it may give you the push you need.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

Hello Again,

After getting some clarification on what I'm supposed to do I found that I am supposed to use PostScript::Simple only to create the letters from the text file I used previously. This is what I came up with:

use strict;
use warnings;

use PostScript::Simple;

$|=1;

my $file = 'C:\Users\Carl\Documents\AddressMergeTXT.txt';

open (INPUT, $file) or die ("Can't open file");

my $line;

my $text;

my $p = 1;

while (my $newline = <INPUT>) {

chomp $newline;

my ($firstname, $lastname, $address, $city, $state, $zipcode, $blank1,
+ $blank2, $blank3, $blank4, $blank5, $blank6, $blank7, $barcode) = sp
+lit('\t', $newline);

$line = new PostScript::Simple (papersize => "Letter");

$line -> setfont("Arial,Bold", 10);

$line -> text (430, 750, "Cogswell Cogs");

$line -> text(430, 740, "2234 W. Dale Ave.");

$line -> text (430, 730, "San Antonio, TX. 77450");

$line -> text (430, 720, "722 - 423 - 7260");

$line -> text (40,700, $firstname);

$line -> text (80, 700, $lastname);

$line -> text (40, 690, $address);

$line -> text (40, 680, $city.",");

$line -> text (115, 680, $state.".");

$line -> text (135, 680, $zipcode);

$line -> setfont("USPSIMBStandard", 10);

$line -> text (40, 670, $barcode);

$line -> setfont("Arial,Bold", 10);

$line -> text (40, 620, "Dear ". $firstname . ",");

$text = &getLetter;

$line -> text (40, 610, $text);

$line -> output('C:\Users\Carl\Documents\testdata\file' .$p .'.eps');

$p += 1;


}


sub getLetter {

my $txline;

my $letterfile = 'C:\Users\Carl\Documents\NewLetter.txt';

open (INPUT1, $letterfile) or die ("Can't open file");

while ($txline = <INPUT1>) {
 
 return $txline;

}

}

close (INPUT);
close (INPUT1);
[download]

It works fine, even though the formatting and style probably sucks, up until I try to read in a form letter using the sub getLetter. It only reads in one line and then stops, thus only the first line of the file gets inserted into the letter. Can someone show me what I did wrong and how I can get the whole file loaded into the letter? Also, almost forgot, can someone tell me how to get the loop to skip reading in the headers on the text file? In other words, so the first letter created will not have First Name, Last Name as the recipient?

As always, any help appreciated

Carl

cmiller2005:

In your getLetter routine, you're only telling it to read the first line. Let's reproduce it here with good indentation:

sub getLetter {
   my $txline;
   my $letterfile = 'C:\Users\Carl\Documents\NewLetter.txt';
   open (INPUT1, $letterfile) or die ("Can't open file");
   while ($txline = <INPUT1>) {
      return $txline;
   }
}
[download]

With the indentation cleaned up, the problem becomes obvious: You read a line into $txline, and then immediately return to the caller. You never actually read the rest of the file.

To fix it, you probably want to collect the entire file and return it as a single text string. You can do it like this:

sub getLetter {
   # Let's start the buffer with an empty string to avoid
   # an "uninitialized" warning message.
   my $txline = "";
   my $letterfile = 'C:\Users\Carl\Documents\NewLetter.txt';
   open (INPUT1, $letterfile) or die ("Can't open file");
   while (my $line = <INPUT1>) {
      # Each time we read $line, we want to add it to the
      # end of $txline
      $txline = $txline . $line;
   }
   # *now* we have all the data we want in $txline, so we
   # can return it to the caller
   return $txline;
}
[download]

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.