> Hi, > > I am evaluating the http://www.ros.co.nz/pdf/, www.fpdf.org and php > classes that generate pdf and as another option use docbook to > convert. > > I am not sure which way is better. > > >From my point of view: > a) Both classes seem to be fine but in order to generate (static) > tables and other elements I will need a lot of programming > calls/variables. So I'd have a manual and perhaps tedious/error > procedure to convert the document into the "programable-version" of > it. > > b) I do not have experience with DocBook (even tough I can code html > and latex) but I could use an editor to generate the document with > the tables, place images etc. Identify the template variables and > call docbook to generate the pdf. I'd still have to manually convert > the file but would not need a lot of calls to generate a table or even > use a php programmer. I am assuming the the tags needed are more > easly understanded than $pdf->addCell($data,width..) > > Any ideias ?
There is a fairly new project called pdml ( http://pdml.sourceforge.net/index.php ) that extends fpdf that converts html (sort of) into pdf. I have used it some. It's new and a little buggy, but it is usable. You could easily use Smarty, XiTemplate, or some other template engine to manage the markup templates to use with pdml. There are also several scripts and classes on the fpdf.org site that cover all sorts of common tasks ( http://fpdf.org/en/script/index.php ). IMHO DocBook may be a little over-kill and possibly overly burdensome for this task since it requires your markup be written in DocBook XML format. I suppose it could be worth while if you plan to create your documents in several different formats on the fly. Jim Grill -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
