[H-GEN] PDF authoring

[Andrae Muys]

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> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
> ] [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will
> vanish. ]
>
> Hi,
>
> I am looking for a quick and easy way to write PDF files. I am
> consulting now and would like to be able to generate PDF invoices and
> quotes for people. So does anyone know of some quick to learn PDF
> authoring utils?
>

I've used two approaches to PDF creation successfully.  The first is
ps2pdf.  One thing you should watch out for is your fonts, if ps2pdf can't
use a default ps font, or successfully embed the font, it will convert to
bitmapped fonts.  These print fine, however they look disgusting on
screen.  A quick google suggested these pages:

http://web.gat.com/diag/pci/ltx2pdf.html
http://www.physics.otago.ac.nz/bec2/bmcd/pdf/

This is what I have used to produce my resume in pdf, and it works fine.

The second approach I've used is FOP.  This is an XML standard for
document formatting, and the xml.apache.org project provides a FOP->pdf
converter that works fine.  We used this on my last job for
programatically generating travel itineraies for clients.

Anyway HTH,

Andrae

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