Web-based PDF export

Spidy has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Greetings, fellow monks.

A friend and I are working on developing a trading card game. In order to make it easier to keep track of the cards that we have designed we want to store all of their data in a MySQL database, and be able to go a page, click on 'export card template', and have a PDF exported that contains all of our card designs, laid out the way we want them to be laid out.

In order to do this, my idea was to have a CGI script that reads the data out of the database and then generates a PDF using a template for each different type of card. However, I am unsure of how to do this, along with what modules I would need to look into. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Spidy

My Website
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Comment on Web-based PDF export

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Re: Web-based PDF export by davidrw (Prior) on Jan 08, 2007 at 20:30 UTC
PDF::API2 can read in a pdf template and write stuff on top of it.. as for the db part, DBI is the way to go -- see the Tutorials for a good starting place	[reply]
Re: Web-based PDF export by shonorio (Hermit) on Jan 08, 2007 at 21:19 UTC
Maybe Catalyst with Template Toolkit and Latex plugin can be a choice for you system. Solli Moreira Honorio Sao Paulo - Brazil	[reply]
Re: Web-based PDF export by jbrugger (Parson) on Jan 09, 2007 at 06:36 UTC
Or use Apache fop. See this node for more information. Next, i'd suggest to stay away form PDF::API2, it gave me unsolvable problems. "We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise." - Larry Wall.	[reply]
Re^2: Web-based PDF export by BerntB (Deacon) on Jan 09, 2007 at 07:41 UTC
I'm not an expert, but I thought the XSL-FO stuff (which fop seems to be a variant of?) didn't support pictures? A trading card game would probably need that. For a trading card game, you'd need some checksum and ID build into the files. Comments are possible in pdf (and all image formats, afaik) and could store the checksum and id. Hmmm.. a web interface that took an uploaded image and gave verified owner and correctness? Fun project. (-: And for economics -- a Magic The Gathering clone playable and storable over the net... what a neat way to steal children's money. Please remember me when you guys start hiring! :-)	[reply]
Re^3: Web-based PDF export by jkva (Chaplain) on Jan 09, 2007 at 09:50 UTC
As for pictures : using the fo `external-graphic` element, this is quite possible. Link on w3schools.com	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Web-based PDF export by Praveen (Friar) on Jan 09, 2007 at 10:34 UTC
Try This Cpan Modules PDF-Create-0.01 & CGI Else chk with Acrobat SDK You can write a plug-in through Acrobat SDK for batch process	[reply]
Re: Web-based PDF export by DrHyde (Prior) on Jan 09, 2007 at 10:14 UTC
Did you look on the CPAN for CGI, MySQL and PDF?	[reply]
Re: Web-based PDF export by Tatnall (Beadle) on Jan 10, 2007 at 19:25 UTC
Hi, I've used PDF Template, which uses PDFLib and is supposed to support PDF::API2 in an upcoming release. It uses XML and a HTML::Template like interface to build the PDF. It's worth taking a look at. Tatnall "Recognizing who we aren't is only the first step toward knowing who we are." - Os Guinness	[reply]
Re: Web-based PDF export by j3 (Friar) on Jan 11, 2007 at 06:44 UTC
... a PDF exported that contains all of our card designs, laid out the way we want... Not sure exactly what you mean by ``card designs'', but if it's just text, a very simple way to do it that I'd try would be to pull the data out, then (possibly using HTML::Template) drop it into a Plain TeX file and process that file with `pdftex` returning the pdf to the user. I haven't yet looked into how to get graphics in, but TeX is great for making beautiful pdf's.	[reply]