----- Original Message ----- From: "Wiggins D'Anconia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: perl.beginners To: "Chris Knipe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 5:07 PM Subject: Re: document creation.
> Chris Knipe wrote: > > Lo all, > > > > I want to create large number of documents (mainly invoices) using perl. In > > a couple of months, I should be creating a few hundred documents per month > > with a few million records in total for the documents (Telecoms > > implementation). > > > > Now, preferably, I wanted to create MS Word documents for this, but alas, a > > stick was shoved into that idea. Win32::OLE doesn't work from *Nix, and > > RTF::Document has like zero documentation (very help full thanks)... > > > > MS Word, thats portable, not to mention the size and lack of revision > control, ick. Open source is your friend. Not enough documentation, > open the code and have a look yourself... > > > > What's my alternatives??? > > > > What is your end goal? You just say that you need to create documents, > etc for storage but you don't say how they will be used. > > > Please keep in mind where possible, I'd like to automatically print the > > invoices prior to archiving the hard documents. The documents is also quite > > complex layout wise, with allot of graphs (Images) and about 95% table > > based... Is HTML really the only alternative here?? I'm not sure whether > > printing HTML will be a very good idea... > > > > HTML is one option but not the only one. XML would be the naturally most > portable and upgradeable probably. XML probably is your best bet assuming you are proficient in the use of XSL. I'll assume you're not when I say you'd do best using SGML, but then you may not be proficient in that either. Deprived of alternatives, learn the basics of CSS. Page breaks do work in CSS, and there are many quick and dirty tutorials online if you need it soon. So your documents will be HTML and CSS, which isn't your very best bargain but which you can still work with. K.P. _____________________________________________________ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
