Thanks a lot for your fast response. I’ll do some study base on your options.
But how about the second part in my last email ? As the following:
We much appreciate the semi-automation of PDF generation just like using
Microsoft Word to editing it. Because we need report reviewer to adding or
modifying the content of PDF. So if this progress can be interactive, it will
give us more efficient. Now our mechanism is adding / modifying by our system
UI against DB and then populate with DB data and generate (”Export”) and
waiting for it out and review the generated pdf file and sometimes we found
some errors or omission and remodifing by system UI against DB and then
repopulate and regenerate and waiting and review again.
Thanks again for your great help.
From: iText Software [mailto:i...@1t3xt.info]
Sent: 2013年6月12日 20:22
To: itext-questions@lists.sourceforge.net; Anders Wong
Subject: Re: [iText-questions] Consultancy for iText
On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:41:43 +0200, Anders Wong <anders_w...@163.com
<mailto:anders_w...@163.com> > wrote:
I want to know if there is something like layout designer or templating so that
we can design the report first and then populate it from business database or
other datasource.
I know iText is more directly to operate PDF. But I’m not sure whether it meet
our above requirements.
There are different answers to this question.
If you watch this movie, you'll already get two options:
http://itextpdf.com/summit.php#talk3
The first option that is explained is:
- create the template in HTML + CSS
- inject the data as HTML
- convert the HTML + CSS to PDF using iText's XML Worker
Advantage:
- everybody knows HTML, so it's easy to create the template
Disadvantage:
- the quality is what you can expect from HTML: poor
The second option that is explained is:
- create the template using Adobe LiveCycle Designer (an XFA form)
- inject XML into your dynamic form
- convert the filled out XFA form to PDF using XFA Worker
Advantage:
- high quality of the rendered output; even supports PDF/A output
- you can use your own XML definitions
- It's ideal in a BPM workflow: http://lowagie.com/xfabpm
Disadvantage:
- creating an XFA form isn't that easy (at least not as easy as creating HTML)
A third option (not explained in the video) is to use a reporting tool.
- JasperReports uses iText under the hood
- Eclipse/BIRT uses iText under the hood
- Inventive Designers / Scriptura used iText under the hood
All these reporting tools come with a designer tool that allows you to create a
proprietary template that can be parsed by their server product.
They all have their own advantages and disadvantages.
I know that this isn't a definitive answer to your question, but I hope it
gives you the inspiration to check out some possible solutions.
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