Hello all I have written quite a lot of e-mail off list in response to my original post. Here is a summary:
1. In addition to the version which is publicly available over the Internet, we will be releasing a commercial version, which can be installed locally in a client network. The price point of this product has yet to be set. I wrote about this here: http://www.phplivedocx.org/2009/01/16/using-phplivedocx-in-your-own-projects/ 2. It is possible to encrypt communication between client and server with SSL. Indeed, when personal data are being sent over the wire, I would recommend this approach. 3. The following template file formats (input) are supported: * DOCX - Microsoft Word DOCX Format * DOC - Microsoft Word DOC Format * RTF - Rich Text Format File * TXD - TX Text Control Format The following document file formats are supported: * DOCX - Microsoft Word DOCX Format * DOC - Microsoft Word DOC Format * RTF - Rich Text Format File * PDF - Acrobat Portable Document Format * TXD - TX Text Control Format * TXT - ANSI Plain Text It is possible that in a future version of the backend technology (TX Text Control) that the formats ODT, ODS, ODP will be supported. However, currently this is not planned. Also see: http://www.phplivedocx.org/2009/01/13/template-vs-document-whats-the-difference/ I would also be really interested in hearing in which kind of applications you would like to use phpLiveDocx. At the company for which I work, we use phpLiveDocx to generate invoices, quotations and price lists. I have spoken to an organization, which is planning on using phpLiveDocx to generate vouchers (as PDF) and which are then e-mailed in a batch job to around 15,000 recipients per day. What about you? What would your applications be with phpLiveDocx? Jonathan Maron On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Jonathan Maron <jonathan.a.ma...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello all > > Zend_Pdf is a great component to generate PDF files with ZF. If you > want to populate PDF templates with text, however, it can be very time > consuming to get the positioning of the text fields just right. I > wrote about this issue here: > > http://tinyurl.com/bym43f > > After having developed several ZF applications in which text had to be > inserted into PDF templates, I knew there must be a better way and > went about developing one. > > The result is a project called phpLiveDocx, which is an unofficial > component for ZF. (If it were to become official component some day, I > would be thrilled.) > > The idea is really simple: > > 1. You design a template in a word processing package (such as Open > Office or Word). In the template, you define any number of text > fields, into which data will be later inserted (same idea as > mail-merge). > > 2. Using phpLiveDocx, you assign data to the template. > > 3. You generate and save the populated document as a PDF, DOCX, DOC or RTF > file. > > The great advantage of this approach is that you uncouple the > formatting of the template and the position of the text fields. In > other words, should a designer change the layout of a template, there > is no need for a developer to update the positioning of the text > fields. > > Of course, the other great advantage is that you can save the > resulting document as DOCX, DOC or RTF, in addition to PDF. > > Here is a really basic example, which illustrates how phpLiveDocx works: > > http://tinyurl.com/ao9c2v > > (The template and resulting document can be download from the bottom > of the post.) > > Here is a very short getting started guide and download links: > > http://tinyurl.com/db23fc > > If you need any help or want to talk about phpLiveDocx, just follow up > here or post me a message: > > http://tinyurl.com/culdpj > > Thank you > > Jonathan Maron > http://www.phpLiveDocx.org >
