I'm looking for some "general architecture suggestions" here, as I need to hire a programmer to do a project and I want to get that person on the right track. I've written a fair amount of php code, but time and energy are on short supply nowadays, thus I need to go outside for this project.
Here's what I want to do:
1.) Take data from a web visitor via an HTML form
2.) Get that data transferred to a pre-existing PDF document, i.e., place the user's HTML generated data into the appropriate fields on the PDF document. The PDF document I have is just a Acrobat reader doc ... it has no functionality at present. Obviously, I'd need to have Acrobat Pro to have the ability to edit forms fields ... not a problem, I plan on upgrading my Acrobat version anyway.
3.) Be able to refresh/edit/update that editable PDF document at will. For example, on the HTML form if the user lists his city as San Francosco and hits "send", I look at the pdf doc and upon noticing the error, go to that field and edit it to read San Francisco.
This my question is ... what the best way to approach this? Is it best to have the HTML data go to a MySQL database first, and then (at my discretion) tell the database to create the pdf ? For example, edit the database from San Francosco to Francisco first, and then tell the database to create the pdf.
Or simply go straight from HTML to the pdf doc, and then I can edit that pdf doc if I see the need by simply opening the pdf and looking for errors.
I know for certain I will need to edit the pdf doc several times, i.e., the HTML form will get the form processing started, and then I'll be in and out of that form several times before I deem it to be complete.
Thank you for suggestions on the architecture ... - Mark
