Witango-Talk: HTML Form to PDF
I have asked this before, but am still having a devil of a time trying to figure out how to get started. I would like to take pre-existing PDF files of, let's say. business cards ot letterheads, with the art already in the PDF file, and have the user fill out an HTML form to input name, address, etc. The PDF would need to have font info embedded and be tighty controled by character length, etc (I could do this in the form). I was all over google trying to find exactly how to do this. I found some very primitive stuff written in ASP and also found some programs related to html2pdf. Has anyone done this with Witango? Any examples or info on what I need to get started? This is not for commercial use but internal. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf
Re: Witango-Talk: HTML Form to PDF
Well, I've done a lot of thinking about this issue over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that it is very hard to integrate with PDF via Acrobat. Adobe has done a good job of emasculating the APIs so you can get close but not exactly where you want to get. So there are two alternatives. 1. Generate pdfs on the server from some source document that gets built from your form. This can use any of the perl modules that involve ps2pdf: Word to ps, HTML to ps, Excel to ps, etc. While I've explored these avenues, I haven't actually implemented a system using these. 2. Build HTML or XHTML (my preference) with CSS2 styles to control accurate display on print and screen. This works for me, and is easier to integrate with web apps. The advantage is that once you get your page looking the way you want it via CSS2, you can use your Witango bag of tricks to build the output. I have asked this before, but am still having a devil of a time trying to figure out how to get started. I would like to take pre-existing PDF files of, let's say. business cards ot letterheads, with the art already in the PDF file, and have the user fill out an HTML form to input name, address, etc. The PDF would need to have font info embedded and be tighty controled by character length, etc (I could do this in the form). I was all over google trying to find exactly how to do this. I found some very primitive stuff written in ASP and also found some programs related to html2pdf. Has anyone done this with Witango? Any examples or info on what I need to get started? This is not for commercial use but internal. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf Bill Conlon To the Point 345 California Avenue Suite 2 Palo Alto, CA 94306 office: 650.327.2175 fax:650.329.8335 mobile: 650.906.9929 e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web:http://www.tothept.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf
Re: Witango-Talk: HTML Form to PDF
Bill, Have you ever used iText to build a PDF document? It's a free java PDF library... We're using it on a project right now http://www.lowagie.com/iText/ /John Bill Conlon wrote: Well, I've done a lot of thinking about this issue over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that it is very hard to integrate with PDF via Acrobat. Adobe has done a good job of emasculating the APIs so you can get close but not exactly where you want to get. So there are two alternatives. 1. Generate pdfs on the server from some source document that gets built from your form. This can use any of the perl modules that involve ps2pdf: Word to ps, HTML to ps, Excel to ps, etc. While I've explored these avenues, I haven't actually implemented a system using these. 2. Build HTML or XHTML (my preference) with CSS2 styles to control accurate display on print and screen. This works for me, and is easier to integrate with web apps. The advantage is that once you get your page looking the way you want it via CSS2, you can use your Witango bag of tricks to build the output. I have asked this before, but am still having a devil of a time trying to figure out how to get started. I would like to take pre-existing PDF files of, let's say. business cards ot letterheads, with the art already in the PDF file, and have the user fill out an HTML form to input name, address, etc. The PDF would need to have font info embedded and be tighty controled by character length, etc (I could do this in the form). I was all over google trying to find exactly how to do this. I found some very primitive stuff written in ASP and also found some programs related to html2pdf. Has anyone done this with Witango? Any examples or info on what I need to get started? This is not for commercial use but internal. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf Bill Conlon To the Point 345 California Avenue Suite 2 Palo Alto, CA 94306 office: 650.327.2175 fax:650.329.8335 mobile: 650.906.9929 e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web:http://www.tothept.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf
Re: Witango-Talk: HTML Form to PDF
John, Looks good. This dovetails with the next elements of our development. Right now we implement content management and print-on-demand in an intranet, and CSS2 works just fine for this. The next step of course is to allow people to email brochures to clients, and a PDF would one way to go. An issue we wrestle with is the human side of this -- how do you assure yourself that users are printing the right version of the document. The XHTML is generated on the fly, and in most case people won't save a web archive. (And I suppose could embed a hash and some JavaScript that would go back to the server to validate the document). The PDF is a little trickier: does the PDF JavaScript API let me do something similar, and is this API implemented in iText? I'll have to investigate. Thanks for the tip! Bill, Have you ever used iText to build a PDF document? It's a free java PDF library... We're using it on a project right now http://www.lowagie.com/iText/ /John Bill Conlon wrote: Well, I've done a lot of thinking about this issue over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that it is very hard to integrate with PDF via Acrobat. Adobe has done a good job of emasculating the APIs so you can get close but not exactly where you want to get. So there are two alternatives. 1. Generate pdfs on the server from some source document that gets built from your form. This can use any of the perl modules that involve ps2pdf: Word to ps, HTML to ps, Excel to ps, etc. While I've explored these avenues, I haven't actually implemented a system using these. 2. Build HTML or XHTML (my preference) with CSS2 styles to control accurate display on print and screen. This works for me, and is easier to integrate with web apps. The advantage is that once you get your page looking the way you want it via CSS2, you can use your Witango bag of tricks to build the output. I have asked this before, but am still having a devil of a time trying to figure out how to get started. I would like to take pre-existing PDF files of, let's say. business cards ot letterheads, with the art already in the PDF file, and have the user fill out an HTML form to input name, address, etc. The PDF would need to have font info embedded and be tighty controled by character length, etc (I could do this in the form). I was all over google trying to find exactly how to do this. I found some very primitive stuff written in ASP and also found some programs related to html2pdf. Has anyone done this with Witango? Any examples or info on what I need to get started? This is not for commercial use but internal. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf Bill Conlon To the Point 345 California Avenue Suite 2 Palo Alto, CA 94306 office: 650.327.2175 fax:650.329.8335 mobile: 650.906.9929 e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web:http://www.tothept.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf Bill Conlon To the Point 345 California Avenue Suite 2 Palo Alto, CA 94306 office: 650.327.2175 fax:650.329.8335 mobile: 650.906.9929 e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web:http://www.tothept.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Go to http://www.witango.com/developer/maillist.taf
