Tracy R Reed wrote: > > We need to be able to produce custom forms such as invoices, packing > lists, receipts, etc. We have been doing it with LaTeX but there are two > problems with it: > > 1. The first is technical. LaTex is good at books and articles etc. but > it is not so great at making forms. For example it considers each page > individually so columns will not necessarily line up across pages > depending on how wide the biggest thing in the column is etc. Its job is > really as a typesetting program where the author provides the content > and LaTeX generates the presentation. We need something that will let us > specify both the content and the presentation. > > 2. Only a couple people here know LaTeX. > > We would like to be able to have our web design staff create our forms > for us. We can make great looking forms on the screen exactly how we > want them using XHTML/CSS. And if we hit print it turns out great. The > problem is how can we render XHTML/CSS to postscript in an automated > fashion? We have to be able to do it from a shell script or perl or > python. The first thing that always comes to mind is somehow scripting > Mozilla but I am not aware of a way to script it in this way much less > do it on a headless server. Others have suggested OpenOffice but it > would have the same problem as mozilla. And if it is possible nobody > seems to know anyone who has actually done it. > > Ideas?
I looked at this a few months ago, and I believe there _used to be_ support for printing via the command line remote control of unix mozilla (mozilla -remote ...) http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html but that the print command is presently broken and/or disabled. man firefox still points to the above page in the "firefox -remote" section. Maybe more info might be avail on some developers' list? hmmm, maybe I go poke around the source again. ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
