I'm looking for a way to be able to fill in PDFs with information from a database.

I want to let the layout people make the layout and use some sort of template system to define the data fields. So they could make the form and then say put in :
<VARNAME: firstName>
where they want the first name to be. Ideally what ever color/size/font/etc they use there would be the one that is used when filling out the that field. I've found some solutions but none seem to take it to this level and it seems like this must be a common want and probably has a solution already.

I'm must be making this harder then it needs to be again! Please help me out before I hurt my head to much hitting it against the wall...

In reply to PDF Template Solution- Why is this so hard? by mkenney

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.