Comments on: Question about CSS = xml

Question: Question about CSS = xml

mdpc98 — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 09:39:36 -0800

i'd like to use css+xml to render pdf on a server for *free*... any help? [mi]

i've looked into yeslogic prince and it sounds like the bee's knees, but their commercial server license is $2000 (?!?). jumping into xsl-fo is a bit more than i want to bite off at the moment; css is not a prob. any help would be greatly appreciated.

an alternative might be to use css to mold printing from a html file, but i'd like to be able to offer pdf to clients so that i know it will print correctly (whereas highly styled html might get eaten by ie).

By: annathea

annathea — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 10:22:40 -0800

Do you know PHP? You can use it to parse your XML data and convert the output to PDF. Not sure about the CSS styling, but I don't think it would pose a problem.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 10:41:32 -0800

Yeah, I was going to suggest writing a PHP script that would position items on each page. However, the main PHP libraries for doing it require licenses for commercial use ($450 or $1000). There's a list of free alternatives here.

By: RustyBrooks

RustyBrooks — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 11:38:34 -0800

pdflib is a free, well supported way to make pdfs. It has both a free and non-free version. I have rarely found a use for the non-free portions, although we have it at work. You'll have to do quite a bit of work to get from XML to pdf, although that's what we do here at work. You'll have to write a bit of custom code. pdflib is very low level "Write this piece of text at 752, 112. Draw a line from 750, 100 to 1000, 100" and so forth. It has bindings for most major languages (via swish)

By: gus

gus — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:40:24 -0800

I'm not sure exactly what you're tring to do, but iText is an opensource Java library I've used on the server to create PDF's and spit them out to a web browser.

If you post some more details on what you're doing, I may be able to give you a better suggestion.

By: gus

gus — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:42:36 -0800

Oh yeah, another idea- PDFCreator. This sets up as a printer on your system, so any program that can print can print to a PDF.

By: fvw

fvw — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 14:26:23 -0800

Why not just plug it into a web browser of your choice and have it print to PS? This can all be automated.

By: mdpc98

mdpc98 — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:24:46 -0800

thanks for the feedback. time to start digging...

By: holloway

holloway — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 16:52:43 -0800

Jump to xsl-fo, it's great.

By: anildash

anildash — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 01:43:19 -0800

mdpc, i have a movable type template that works in PHP to turn any content in the system into a PDF. email me (email's in the profile) if you are still looking.

By: mdpc98

mdpc98 — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 08:06:02 -0800

holloway--do you recommend any resources that particularly helped you?