[RESOLVED] align output to printer

d4rg0

Before I throw out the big question, I'll just say that I've been reading this forum (and a lot of other sites and google) for the last couple of days. So, I know this is my first post, but I've done my homework 🙂

The case:
I've got a very complex pre-printed form, A4 size. Onto this form I want to print out some dynamic content from my mysql db.

The problem:
Aligning the dynamic content on a html page with css (using css pagebreak) is not easy. And also I find it a bit "off" when the new page is going to print. (might be just me or the printer)

The Solution:
Generate a pdf on-the-fly with php.

So far so good. I prayed.
Now, the trouble is that I still need to align the variables right. So generating a pdf from scratch will still give me a lot of work. So, I think this might be the plan?

1)
Scan the pre-printed form to pdf.
2)
Fill in with php variables where needed in the scanned pdf file.
3)
Stripp the "form" layout from my new pdf (so that any new dynamic pdf only contain the variables for printout)
4)
Genereate on-the-fly pdf (silly looking, with only words here and there, but ok on paper since it will be put inside the pre-printed form)

Problem:
How to open the scanned form (now a pdf file) with php and to further work with it? It seems that it's only possible to "generate" a pdf with php, not "edit" an existing pdf file?

According to "Roger Ramjet" (user on this forum, in post 4 in reply to this thread : http://phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?t=10306228&highlight=pdf)
"Not a chance". So it seeems that I'm stuck.

So. I guess I'm not the only one that had to do this in the past. What was you solution? Try and error till it's right with the html/css? Or what?

Is it possible to scan to postscript (readable by php?)

The rest of it is ok, I strugle only with this alignement part and it would really help if I could "work" on top of an electronic version of the pre-printet form. I hope all this made any sense, as it's past 2am when I'm posting this. I'll have to sleep on it and hope for a better day tomorrow 🙂

Any good advice is welcomed.

Thank you for your time reading this post, and thanks in advance for any advice.

bastien

the html /css solution works best, unfortunately, on IE...strange but true....

what do you mean by 'work with'?

d4rg0

Thank you for your answer.

I will just have to try till I got it right then.
And I'm using Firefox.

I ment that it would be nice to work (put the php variables and styling) on top of the pdf form, then remove the form from the pdf and just print out the php output onto the pre-printet form.

(I'll mark this post solved later if no one else have another solution.)

Thank you

bastien

have you looked at www.fpdf.org

d4rg0

I'm using fpdf today to generate my pdf's.

If you're reffering to fpdi, I'm not sure... in the fpdf faq it says : "You can import an existing PDF document thanks to the FPDI extension"

But on the fpdi site it says : "Be aware that FPDI is not made for manipulating PDFs. The document you create is a completely new one with its own structure. All dynamic content like links and forms get lost."

I just assumed that this ment that I was not able to do it, and from the "no" in the previous mentioned post..

I'll have a look at it this evening. Thank you for your tip on this one.

d4rg0

Hi
Sorry for the delay, but here are some new info.

A long story short:
fpdi didn't give me the opportunity to edit the scanned pdf in a way that I could add php variables to it. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know.

So I came up with another way.

Scan the pre-printed paper-form to pdf.
Export to postscript.

Now I got myself a clear-text postscript file which I can edit in a text editor.

My route ahead is something like this:

1)
Make a postscript template file, which contains the php variables where I need them to be.
2)
When the user want to generate the printout, let my php gather data from mysql, generate dynamically a new postscript based on the postscript template file and the data from the mysql. (preserving the template file for later). Then take the new .ps file and generate a pdf (ps2pdf) and let the user press the print button.

For this to happen I need help with a couple of things.

1)
How do I put php variables into this postscript file? (example?)
2)
How do I tell php to import the postscript template, populate the php variables and save as a new postscript file?

After this two steps I'll use the ghostscript ps2pdf from php and generate and show the pdf. I hope this part is easy 🙂

I just need some hints if anyone got them.

bastien

If the post script file is simple text, then insert the variables like {name} {address} etc. Read the entire file into a PHP variable with file (). The run a simple search and replace for the variables

$file = str_replace("{name}",$name,$file);

and bob's your uncle...

d4rg0

First, thank you very much for your kind help and interest in my problem.

Even if the .ps file is a simple textfile, I'm not able to change the content in a text editor and view the modyfied .ps file.

Why? An example:

I created with fpdf a simple pdf file from php.
Then I used Adobe Acrobat to export it from pdf to postscript.
(Why not use Ghostscript pdf2ps? It renders the text into binary data, imagematrix, it says in the result)

Near the bottom of the .ps file (from Adobe), we will find this :

(Hello World!)
[11.5518 8.896 4.448 4.448 9.77588 4.448 15.1038 9.77588 6.22388 4.448 9.77588 0]xsh

I have tried to export both with and without embedded font.

If I change the "W" in "World" to a lowercase "w" it would not render any letter (just leave an empty space). Any other letter or word gives the same result. I guess this has to do with the metrics found in the line beneath the (Hello World!) one.

This will give me a problem, since if I put in a variable in the end of that sentence it would not render - unless I'm able to add it to the metrics in the line beneath.
And since I'm going to use a php variable there, I will "never" know what metrics will be the right ones unless I'm able to generate those metrics also based on the output from php to the variables.

So I guess I'm back to html/css? Sooo close to the perfect solution...
I didn't expect this to be this hard to do.

Hm, php is able to generate png gfx files. I might be able to scan the pre-printed form to a gfx file, measure the distances and use those numbers to put the text in a png generated by php/gd. Should work well if I use transparent background.

I'll post the result 🙂

bastien

Another option is to just store the text in a simple text file and then read in the file with php, make the changes with search/replace and then save the whole thing to the pdf each time...

d4rg0

Might help, but it's not the text itself I'm interested in.
The php variables was going to place information gathered from the mysql table to fill out the pdf (so that the pre-printed form would be filled out when printed to it) not replace text on it.

I don't see how I could take the postscript "layout", overlay it with my variables to generate a fresh pdf.

bastien

Its simply starting the process a step or two earlier. The end result is that instead of attempting to fill in your pdf / ps file with the additional data, the entire data stream is stored in a method where you can manipulate it with the php string functions. When the manipulation is complete, you invoke the functions required to generate the pdf (in this case fpdf might be the way to go).

This is the way I would approach the issue. By storing the entire pdf in some sort of accessible storage, and then adding what I need I then have a variable in memory that gets processed out to the pdf so that it looks like you want it to.

In the never-ending search for other options, the pdf toolkit from adobe is a com object that you can use to manipulate actual controls on the pdf (if you were to consider creating a pdf with text boxes, radio buttons etc)

d4rg0

Hi bastien (and all the rest who is reading this thread)
I would just take the opportunity to thank you for your kind help on this so far. I'm not the one who quit easily, so I've been trying to fix this in many ways. So I'm just trying all options that I can think of.

Before I go on and explain what I've done, I must confess that I didn't quite follow you on your last post here. That is, I understand what you're talking about, but don't see how to do it. I'm not that experienced in php yet. I would love to see some pseudo code on that post if you have the time. It might help me solve this before I go and try the .png thing.

Just pointing out that it's not about replacing text on the original form, but add new dynamic values to the open spots on the form. Just a thought, would it be easier to fill in my variables on the pre-printed form before I scan to pdf? It would give me trouble if the pdf2ps generates splitted words (it does that with sentences at least).

In a way I've solved it like I want it. Just 1 thing left now.
Here's what have I tried since last time:

1)
First, I scan in the pre-printed form to pdf. Let's call it template.pdf

2)
Then made a new, blank pdf with Adobe LiveCycle Designer.
Here I choose to add text with the font Courier New. To use Courier New is important here because it's a monospace font. I made one text string with content "{variable1}". Saved to variables.pdf. Opened it in Acrobat and exported to postscript. (variables.ps)

3)
Then I opened the variables.ps in Acrobat (not the reader).
Now I choose "Document, Background, add/replace". Here I pick the template.pdf file.

4)
Now I'm able to move around my variable by selecting it using the "touchup object tool" to drag it into place. (Tools menu, advanced editing)

5)
Then it's time for some magic, remove the background. (Document, Backgound, remove)

6)
Now, all you can see is a white paper with the variable "in place" where I need it to be when I print out. So, let's export this to variables.ps. Replace the old variables.ps is okay since the old one don't have a mission anymore. Now I use this file to search/replace the {variable1} with data from mysql and save as .ps, call ps2pdf and...you get it.

Yes I got it! No, I don't. What's wrong:
If I create more text variables in LiveCycle I'm not able to move them freely around as explaind. They all "stick" to eachother so I have to move them as one object on the page. That's a major drawback.

How to fix this? Well, now I'm so close to fix this that it hurts.
So I'm hoping for an explanation on your last post, or some tip on how to make more text in LiveCycle which doesn't stick to eachother.

Thank you for your time reading this long post.

bastien

Seems convoluted to me...

A simpler solution to me would be to have all the data that is needed to make the pdf with fpdf as a php string....either as a simple text file or inline right where you are processing the page.

Then take your form/db data and do a search / replace on the string...this should not affect the formatting for the pdf. Then use fpdf to generate a new pdf report each time....send that down to the user...much simpler

d4rg0

I think I got it now. At least it works.

First I use the pre-printed paper form and measure it with the distance tool in Adobe Acrobat to get a complete set of coordinates where to put my variables. That step is not part of mye day to day routine, it's just to get my template coordinates.

Then, in my php routine, when the user click on a link to generate the pdf, I first connect to my db and populate a set of variables. I then, in the same php file, use fpdf to create a new pdf - set the properties for it, and put my variables in place with text(coordinates,$variableX); and open it.

Now, the user only sees a white page with some text here and there. But since fpdf doesn't support backgrounds, nor the opportunity to exclude backgrounds before print, it will do for now. It looks good when printed to the pre-printed form. It would also look nicer if I had a way to just let the user print the pdf without seeing it on-screen first.

It took some time, and had to take some shortcuts and drop some nice effect (the background) but I think I can put a "solved" on this one now. So I want to thank you one more time for helping me with this one.