in reply to PDF generation

Here is a different approach, instead of creating a PDF report directly, you can create your report in a XML format first, and then use a XSL stylsheet and Apache FOP to translate the XML file to a PDF file. The advantage is, by this way, you can easily provide your report in a different format (e.g. in HTML format), when it's needed, by just supplying a different stylesheet.

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Re: Re: PDF generation
by freddo411 (Chaplain) on Sep 03, 2003 at 18:25 UTC
    XML + XSL <=> fully visually formated, paginated file.

    Very roughly:
    * XML = data
    * XSL = fonts/colors

    What about:
    * pagination
    * graphical elements
    * background images

    What is proposed with PDF results in a fully paginated, layouted file with embedded graphics all nicely wrapped up into a single template file.

    Correction
    As mentioned below, FOP uses XML tags to more or less completely specify layout, pagination, etc, etc. Thus you could have XML encoded data and using an XSLT tranformation end up with a XSL-fo file that would be nicely layed-out. These file are specifically designed to be then rendered into PDF for presentation.

    I'm not aware how mature the tools are for generating an XSL-fo file (especially GUI driven visual tools). I'm still in favor of PDF Templates because at this point PDF print drivers allow virtually any program to output PDF templates.

    -------------------------------------
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    -- Michael Faraday

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