The opinions are flying, so...
In Document Management systems this is given. You set the shell that holds
the text objects in place on top of the pdf file. You then pass the data
...
This is a false statement. Document management systems do not use the
"print on top of PDF" design as "a given." The 2 document management
applications that I have worked on threw out this approach mostly
because of what Ted has pointed out. I've done other applications where
"document management" was a component and we also did not use it there.
One thing I have implemented regarding PDFs is an "archiving" function
(aka, exactly what was sent to the customer, user). Those components
simply printed output twice (once for the users, once to the logging
PDFs when then got placed back into the DB).
Like Alan suggested I think the easiest solution is to just create it
using the VFP report writer. Put all the words, lines, boxes etc using
the normal report writer tools and anything graphics like that you can't
...
I'll second the "write-in-VFP" option for a couple reasons:
1) the output quality will be superb, and when generating paper for
users/customers, the quality of the finished product leaves lasting
impressions (don't forget about color! <g>)
2) there will be a huge payoff for future maintainability and
flexibility (got change in form, new form, more data? no problem!).
In fact, if your company would allow you, go ahead and send me
([email protected]) a scan or picture of the form and I'll get it started
for you (I generally use VFP9, but if you have earlier versions let me
know). The thing is, there are some features of the VFP Report Writer
that are hard to explain, but if you see them in action the lightbulb
comes on (for example, to put a box around the whole content, just
stretch a box from header to footer bands). So, while I may not have
time to do a complete form, I can probably set up the initial layout
which you could easily expand from there.
-Charlie
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