Instead of directly writing PDFs, you also might want consider to write a TeX/LaTeX file, which easily can be converted to a pdf with LaTeX. If you're on gn*x, I would check out the tetex package (find it on freshmeat.net).

The advantage of such an approach is, that you can have quite high-level control (ie, just write your text). However, learning about all the handy packages can take quite a while. A sample perl script might be something like this: 


#get the data first
$a = <DATA>;
chomp $a;
$b = <DATA>;
chomp $b;
open TEX, ">file.tex" or die "Could not open file.tex";
print TEX <<'_END';
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\title{TeX-report}
\author{Me}
\maketitle
\section{Some data}
_END
print TEX "I have $a and $b. That's all for now.\n";
print TEX <<'_END';
\section{Some table}
\begin{table}
  \caption{A table}
  \begin[|l|c|c|]{tabular}
    \hline
_END
while(<DATA>){
  chomp;
  print TEX join('&', split ).'\\ \hline'."\n";
}
print TEX <<'_END';
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}
_END
system("latex file.tex");
system("latex file.tex");
system("dvipdf file") if -e "file.dvi";
__DATA__
129873
12315
1 8 2
1 3 100
8 3 4

[download]

Here I'm also using the dvipdf package, (freshmeat.net), but you could use 'dvips file -o' and 'ps2pdf file.ps' as well. Perl code is checked. I'm using TeX daily, so you always can /msg me with further questions.

Hope this helps,

Jeroen
"We are not alone"(FZ)

In reply to Re: Generating PDF by jeroenes
in thread Generating PDF by Anonymous Monk

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