major data processing into pdf

[Sean]

Just generate them on the fly from a database. PHP should do this. That
way you don't have to preprocess anything until it is needed.

Mark, I think, was doing some PHP generated pdf files, I dont know how far
he got though... but basically the set up looks like this.

Database -> user acesses web -> server reads database, generates pdf, and
returns pdf -> user sees pdf

It will take about 98% of the PITA out of the whole process.

The Database could actually be the flat files or you could load them into
a database or just directly access them (which probably is a non-option),
and it might be a lot simpler if you can get it to work with perl if your
using large flat files and make it a cgi instead.

I could probably ramble on about this for a while, so ask if you want more
info..

On Thu, 3 May 2001, Marcel Kunath wrote:

> Hello,
>
> MSU is looking into eliminating the mailings of bills to students in some
> fashion. I am not sure what plans they have but I know they are looking into
> this. I was asked if I had any ideas of how billing could be done in the future
> in an online access fashion.
>
> Basically the way billing works is that a large data file gets spit out of the
> mainframe and this text file is used to print bills. They wonder if there is
> any way to turn manipulate the text file (scripts) and then create single PDF
> files for each bill. The PDF files then should be accessible via the web.
>
> Now I am certain in some way this is possible. I figured you could take the
> text file (not sure the format of it right now) split it into separate files,
> then run a parser and introduce tags for the content of each student bill. Then
> you create a DTD and stylesheet using XML and use a program like jade to create
> PDF files from the tagged student bills.
>
> If anybody has better ideas or input please detail them. Note, this entire
> process should be possible to automate as it has to run every night for a few
> thousand students.
>
> Disclaimer: This is just a research effort right now so don't go spreading
> rumors.
>
> mk
>
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