Questions about PDFs

amy_damnit

I am trying to migrate my life away from Microsoft and have some questions about what PHP can do with PDF's...

Question #1: Is it possible to launch a .PDF file from within PHP?

I currently have an MS Access database that shows receipt data, and when you click on a button, it launches Adobe Acrobat and shows the corresponding PDF attachment.

Question #2: Is it possible to show a .PDF file embedded within a PHP web form?

In some ways, it would be nice to be able to see my .PDF attachments in the webform while also looking at the live form data.

(On a side note, I'd be interested - from a design standpoint - how people usually handle this.)

As an extra bonus...

Question #3: Is there any practical way to click on a button in PHP and have it launch my scanning software (i.e. Epson) to help speed up the process of entering and scanning in receipts?

Thanks,

Amy

etully

First of all, congratulations on the decision to become MS free. I've had Linux on my desk for five years and on my server for ten and it feels great.

To answer all three of your questions at once, remember that PHP is a server side technology. For now, think of it as nothing more than an HTML maker. It makes HTML for you. Then the HTML gets sent across the Internet to the user's computer where it gets rendered. When it's rendered on the user's computer, that machine has no idea whether the HTML it just received was generated by hand, by ASP, or by PHP.

So if you can use ASP to create HTML that contains a link to a PDF and the user clicks a button/link and it opens Adobe Reader, then you can do exactly the same thing with PHP.

But it's an important distinction: You aren't opening the PDF in PHP. In fact, you aren't opening the PDF at all. You are sending HTML to the user's computer where they are opening the PDF on their computer (where neither PHP nor ASP have any effect on their lives).

So for Question #1: You can use PHP to read from a database (it works with MS Access and MySQL and others), and then use PHP to generate some HTML that will contain a button that links triggers their browser to invoke Adobe Acrobat Reader to get/display the PDF. In other words, PHP can create the exact same HTML that ASP can.

Question #2: Again, there isn't really any such thing as a PHP web form. There are HTML forms. And they can post to a PHP page the exact same way that they would to an ASP page. There are no differences between a form that posts to PHP and one that posts to ASP. It's just an HTML form. So your question is... can you display a PDF within the context of an HTML form? You could put a button in the viscinity of your form that triggers Adobe Acrobat to open and display the PDF (but I get the sense that that's not really what you want). HTML can't display a PDF inline... in the body of the HTML page. But you can display GIF's and JPG's inline... in the body of the HTML page and near the HTML form. So this is pretty advanced but it's possible: You could have a Perl script that uses ImageMagick that converts your PDF into a GIF or JPG and then you could display that on your HTML page near the HTML form. That's how I would normally handle that need. The learning curve is steep on that but once you're good with Perl, you can do something like that in an hour or two. But no, you can't display the PDF inline in your HTML page.

Question #3: Again, PHP runs on the server. So what you're really asking is can HTML invoke software on your computer. That's an interesting question. I suppose that you could invent a mime type (or maybe there is one already) and you configure your web browser to know that your Epson software is designed to handle that mime type. Clicking the button gets a file with this special Mime type. Even if you got that working, I think the hard part would be be to get the Epson software to deliver (pass) the scanned image into your web browser. Unlikely. Certainly not something that we normally use HTML for. I would be inclined to investigate using a Java applet (not Javascript) to handle this kind of requirement. I suspect that the cost to do this would outweigh the value of the ease of use for your users.

amy_damnit

Etully,

Wow! Another stud! (Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response!) 🙂

etully;10921868 wrote:
First of all, congratulations on the decision to become MS free. I've had Linux on my desk for five years and on my server for ten and it feels great.

Thanks! Yep, I'm "on the wagon" - hopefully for good?!

It amazes me how much Microsoft has taken over my life. And it is even more amazing how much of my life has had to be re-engineered switching from Microsoft and proprietary apps to platform-independent/open-source solutions.

But I am persistent and slowly converting everything over.

My end goal is - besides hardware - to be 95-100% free of proprietary/pay-for software in my life.

To answer all three of your questions at once, remember that PHP is a server side technology.

Doh! insert Homer soundbite!

Yes, you are right! Thank you for the reminder!

For now, think of it as nothing more than an HTML maker. It makes HTML for you. Then the HTML gets sent across the Internet to the user's computer where it gets rendered. When it's rendered on the user's computer, that machine has no idea whether the HTML it just received was generated by hand, by ASP, or by PHP.

ASP... Do I detect Micro$oft skeletons?! LOL

Java Server Pages (JSPs) would fall into this category too, right?

So if you can use ASP to create HTML that contains a link to a PDF and the user clicks a button/link and it opens Adobe Reader, then you can do exactly the same thing with PHP.

But it's an important distinction: You aren't opening the PDF in PHP. In fact, you aren't opening the PDF at all. You are sending HTML to the user's computer where they are opening the PDF on their computer (where neither PHP nor ASP have any effect on their lives).

Hmmm...

More correctly, so the user would click on a webform icon (or HTML link) and the browser (?) would use the MIME type (?) in the link and know to open Adobe Acrobat for the listed .PDF extension?

Is that right?

(In my MS Access database, I think my VBA code actually launches Adobe Acrobat and said attachment, so it sounds like a conversation of processes going to the web??)

Question #2: HTML can't display a PDF inline... in the body of the HTML page. But you can display GIF's and JPG's inline... in the body of the HTML page and near the HTML form. So this is pretty advanced but it's possible: You could have a Perl script that uses ImageMagick that converts your PDF into a GIF or JPG and then you could display that on your HTML page near the HTML form. That's how I would normally handle that need. The learning curve is steep on that but once you're good with Perl, you can do something like that in an hour or two. But no, you can't display the PDF inline in your HTML page.

Yah, I was wondering about having an embedded PDF in my webform.

Okay, but I have to disagree because I often see webpages online where when you open a PDF it is embedded in the webpage, although I think it takes up the whole screen basically as opposed to say 25% of your screen.

From a usability standpoint, I'm not sure if there is any value to using an embedded PDF in a web page anyways.

If you want to see a PDF version of a receipt, you probably would want to view it full-screen in Acrobat, right?

Then again, lots of site (e.g. my bank) use JPEGs/GIFs to display images (e.g. canceled checks) online in web pages.

(On a side note: How hard would it be to convert already PDF'd receipts into a JPEG/GIF and maintain enough image quality to have a readable receipt on a 19" monitor??)

Question #3: Again, PHP runs on the server. So what you're really asking is can HTML invoke software on your computer. That's an interesting question.

HTML can't invoke programs, but I'm almost certain that PHP can invoke applications/run exe's/run scripts.

If so, then PHP could launch MS Word, or Adobe Acrobat or Epson Scanner Software for me.

Even if you got that working, I think the hard part would be be to get the Epson software to deliver (pass) the scanned image into your web browser. Unlikely.

I agree with that part.

And I'm not sure what kind of workflow I even want. (Some people gasp might call me retarded for wasting time scanning in all of my paper receipts?!)

Right now my flow is as follows...

Current Workflow
1.) Open up MS Access database
2.) Open up Epson scanner software
3.) Open up Adobe Acrobat Professional
4.) Open up Windows Explorer

5.) Enter paper receipt into MS Access form
6.) Scan paper receipt and save.
7.) Copy 'ReceiptID'
8.) Find new PDF file (e.g. Scan12345.pdf) in Windows Explorer
9.) Select PDF in Windows Explorer
10.) Hit F2 and paste 'ReceiptID' and type '.pdf' and hit <Enter>

11.) Go back into MS Access
12.) Click 'View Attachment' button
13.) Verfiy PDF attachment launches and matches current record.

whew

If I can automate ANY of that, I would be happy!!

Here is a place where maybe PHP is more apt to help me out...

Proposed New Workflow
1.) Open up MS Access database
2.) Open up Epson scanner software
3.) Open up Adobe Acrobat Professional
4.) Open up Windows Explorer

5.) Enter paper receipt into MS Access form
6.) Scan paper receipt and save.
7.) Click 'Update Attachment name' button
8.) Have PHP take 'ReceiptID' from web form and go to set folder in Windows Exploer (i.e. on file system) and rename originally scanned filename from 'Scan12345.pdf' to <ReceiptID>.pdf
9.) Launch renamed PDF to verify that it matches current record.

It seems to me that much is doable with PHP and would save me a fair amount of time.

Anyways, those are my questions and responses and thoughts.

Feel free to enlighten me some more! 🙂

Sincerely,

Amy

etully

HTML can't invoke programs, but I'm almost certain that PHP can invoke applications/run exe's/run scripts.

Are you using PHP on your local machine? Or on a remote web site?

If it's your local machine, that's perfectly fine... but it's definitely the exception. My answers were geared towards the more common scenario where PHP is generating HTML for output to a remote client.

I often see webpages online where when you open a PDF it is embedded in the webpage

I'm pretty sure we're using different definitions of the term "embedded" here. There aren't any browsers that are PDF aware. They all invoke some external program and display them outside the web page. Think of how a GIF looks on an HTML page. You scroll the page and the page moves up/down and the GIF retains its position relative to the rest of the content on the web page. You can't do that with a PDF because the browser isn't displaying the PDF - the PDF is shown outside the browser.

amy_damnit

etully;10921874 wrote:
Are you using PHP on your local machine? Or on a remote web site?

This particular application would run locally on my computer.

If it's your local machine, that's perfectly fine... but it's definitely the exception. My answers were geared towards the more common scenario where PHP is generating HTML for output to a remote client.

Right, but I need PHP to generate the web application (i.e. HTML) as well.

I'm pretty sure we're using different definitions of the term "embedded" here. There aren't any browsers that are PDF aware. They all invoke some external program and display them outside the web page. Think of how a GIF looks on an HTML page. You scroll the page and the page moves up/down and the GIF retains its position relative to the rest of the content on the web page. You can't do that with a PDF because the browser isn't displaying the PDF - the PDF is shown outside the browser.

Embedded = you click on a link and the PDF appears inside the web page/form.

vs.

Non-Embedded = you click on a link and Acrobat launches in a separate application window

Amy

CoderDan

Many browsers (I use firefox) will open pdf's into the same or a new tab with default (I think) configuration. If you want your pdf to be inside of a page, it may be possible with an iframe, but no browser (because they all use html rules) will display a pdf like an image (which is what I think you are really after). there's object tags for flash, there's img tags for images, but no pdf tag. It's possible, I guess that a flash application could be developed that opens and displays a pdf, but I suspect thats outside the scope of this, and I'm not a flash guy anyhows.
As you're hosting the php on your machine, and creating this application for yourself only, you should be able to customize browser settings as need be for opening pdf's 'embedded' (and feel free to try the iframe approach for displaying it within a page, I've never tried it myself)
For running apps automatically, take a look here.