What is the best way to create an online interface for generating PDF files based on a predefined template?

Asked by fireside (12359

) March 14th, 2010

I want to design a Newsletter template for a local committee that I am on but I want to allow others who don’t have design programs to modify the content areas and generate PDF files that can be saved or sent to other people.

The other people who may be adding the content, text and images, would need an interface where they could manage that content and generate monthly newsletters.

I have server space in a LAMP environment, so .NET applications won’t work. I’m also not a very advanced programmer, so hopefully the solution would be something I could figure out.

Any ideas about what I can do to set this up?

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5 Answers

I do this. I accept the form fields over html. Then I use OpenOffice Uno to do a search and replace of the form fields. Then I use OpenOffice integration to print the .odt as a .pdf which is returned to the user.

malevolentbutticklish (2155

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Mediawiki is a free wiki you can install on your server. You give your crew permissions, they make changes, then you use a program like cutepdf to “print” the file as a pdf.

Hope this makes sense.

drhat77 (6197

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@fireside: I am curious as to how you end up accomplishing this. Please get back to us.

malevolentbutticklish (2155

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If you know PHP programming try FPDF: http://www.fpdf.org/

It only works for simple cases though. But I’ve used it in the past and it’s worked well.

prbl3 (7

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@prbl3: Even if you are not using PHP if you find the FPDF library will do your trick you might be able to compile it and link it in with something like http://www.roadsend.com/home/index.php?pageID=compiler or a translator or do a manual port.

malevolentbutticklish (2155

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