list user wrote:
Hi All;
I'm looking for a way to generate a PDF report based on a set of data in
a database and a set of pre-generated graphs via some sort of procedural
method based on a template.
We tried to do this via open office & it's templating features but this
process requires us to first generate an odt file based on xml and then
open the open office odt file and export to a PDF, unfortunately our
first stab generated a 150GB odt file. This is of course an unacceptable
method. So, I'm looking for a way to generate PDF's straight away as
described above. Anyone have any ideas?
It depends on how good you want them to look. Assuming that "readable" is
the
goal, generate HTML and use html2ps | pstopdf out the output end. The nice thing
is the HTML is generally useful for reports by itself, so win-win.
If you want presentation quality, start learning troff. I wrote hundreds of
pages in troff, "back when," and it is great at text to beautiful. Not a skill
in high demand, and there are other things. Knuth would tell you that TeX is the
one to use.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen(a)tmr.com>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot