Re: [OT] PDF generation (was: Reporting + Struts)

2004-03-11 Thread Niall Pemberton
Wendy's post about this suggests that she isn't having a problem with it
(120 pages in 7 seconds).

To get a "sexy" looking grid on the page, with nice headers (multi-line,
cell spaning stuff) we created our own TableRenderer based on iText's
PdfPTableEvent - it handles drawing the headers and nice colored lines
around all the cells. I think that slows it down quite a bit. As well as
that, we wanted nice page headers and footers, with page numbering and ended
up doing that through the PdfPageEvents. I think the combination of all that
slows it down.

Its probably not as bad as I think though - we currently generate a report
by kicking of a batch script which starts up its own jvm and initializes a
db framework - if I put it in a web app, that wouldn't happen every time,
plus we could cache our report definitions - so maybe we would save a
proportion of the 30 seconds. Thats next on my list after the current stuff
I'm doing.

Niall


- Original Message - 
From: "Hubert Rabago" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Struts Users Mailing List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 5:57 PM
Subject: [OT] PDF generation (was: Reporting + Struts)


>
> --- Niall Pemberton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I ended up ditching it and creating reports using iText to create pdf
files
> > directly.
> >
> >  http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
> >
> > BTW, I wasn't doing it in a web environment and the pdf generation is
slow,
> > can take up to 30 seconds for a large report. I am going to be putting
>
> If you think that is slow, wait till you try Apache's FOP.  It's been a
> while, but IIRC, when my reports went five pages or more, I believe it
took
> around 30 secs.  With 50 pages, my users started calling and asking if the
> app was still running.
>
> My current users are Excel lovers, so I generate formatted Excel docs
> (through POI) that they can edit or print directly.
>
> I was gonna use IText the next time I needed PDFs.  If that's slow too, ar
e
> there other alternatives?
>
>
>
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RE: [OT] PDF generation (was: Reporting + Struts)

2004-03-11 Thread Hubert Rabago

--- Wendy Smoak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hubert Rabago wrote:
> > My current users are Excel lovers, so I generate formatted Excel docs
> > (through POI) that they can edit or print directly.
> 
> Do you have a small example?  I'm currently sending a CSV from my Struts
> app, but there is a huge demand for Excel.  I've started experimenting
> with the XML structure of an Excel Workbook, but I don't know how far
> that's going to get me.

I found this really helpful:
http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/hssf/quick-guide.html 
It's their "Busy Developers' Guide to HSSF Features" and it gives you the
complete needed to produce a worksheet to see each feature, one at a time.
I got 95% of what I needed there, and the rest by studying the method
signatures of the different classes.

Hubert


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Re: [OT] PDF generation (was: Reporting + Struts)

2004-03-11 Thread Niall Pemberton
We use POI as well, the best place to start is the "Quick Guide":

   http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/hssf/quick-guide.html

Niall

- Original Message - 
From: "Wendy Smoak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Struts Users Mailing List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 6:37 PM
Subject: RE: [OT] PDF generation (was: Reporting + Struts)


Niall Pemberton wrote
> http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
> BTW, I wasn't doing it in a web environment and the pdf 
> generation is slow, can take up to 30 seconds for a large report.

I'm using iText for my Struts app, and it's not that slow for me...  120
pages in ~7 seconds.  I suppose it depends on what you're trying to
transform, though.  Mine is pre-formatted text, the only thing I do is
page breaks.

Hubert Rabago wrote:
> My current users are Excel lovers, so I generate formatted Excel docs
> (through POI) that they can edit or print directly.

Do you have a small example?  I'm currently sending a CSV from my Struts
app, but there is a huge demand for Excel.  I've started experimenting
with the XML structure of an Excel Workbook, but I don't know how far
that's going to get me.

-- 
Wendy Smoak
Application Systems Analyst, Sr.
ASU IA Information Resources Management 

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RE: [OT] PDF generation (was: Reporting + Struts)

2004-03-11 Thread Wendy Smoak
Niall Pemberton wrote
> http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
> BTW, I wasn't doing it in a web environment and the pdf 
> generation is slow, can take up to 30 seconds for a large report.

I'm using iText for my Struts app, and it's not that slow for me...  120
pages in ~7 seconds.  I suppose it depends on what you're trying to
transform, though.  Mine is pre-formatted text, the only thing I do is
page breaks.

Hubert Rabago wrote:
> My current users are Excel lovers, so I generate formatted Excel docs
> (through POI) that they can edit or print directly.

Do you have a small example?  I'm currently sending a CSV from my Struts
app, but there is a huge demand for Excel.  I've started experimenting
with the XML structure of an Excel Workbook, but I don't know how far
that's going to get me.

-- 
Wendy Smoak
Application Systems Analyst, Sr.
ASU IA Information Resources Management 

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[OT] PDF generation (was: Reporting + Struts)

2004-03-11 Thread Hubert Rabago

--- Niall Pemberton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I ended up ditching it and creating reports using iText to create pdf files
> directly.
> 
>  http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
> 
> BTW, I wasn't doing it in a web environment and the pdf generation is slow,
> can take up to 30 seconds for a large report. I am going to be putting

If you think that is slow, wait till you try Apache's FOP.  It's been a
while, but IIRC, when my reports went five pages or more, I believe it took
around 30 secs.  With 50 pages, my users started calling and asking if the
app was still running.

My current users are Excel lovers, so I generate formatted Excel docs
(through POI) that they can edit or print directly.

I was gonna use IText the next time I needed PDFs.  If that's slow too, are
there other alternatives?



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