[thelist] Printing help - thanks

[Jay Turley]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adrian Roselli [mailto:roselli at algonquinstudios.com]
> (this is aardvark, btw):
> 
> > From: "Jay Turley" <jay at weberrific.org>
> > 
> > The .RTF format will be used. Due to the fact the .RTF files are all
> > in 7- bit ASCII, are completely compatible with Word, and have a
> > simple file format, this will enable us to create formatted reports
> > that are completely printable by clients. This includes formatting
> > options such as page margins, document titles and creator info, etc.
> > etc. 
> 
> i'm still curious why you did this over PDF?  the 7-bit reason can't 
> be the only one - can it?  do more of your clients have Word (x.x) 
> than Acrobat?  do you know that *all* your clients will have the 
> correct fonts (assuming you are using basic ones, like Arial or 
> Times New Roman)?  are they all Windows users?  do your clients 
> know what to do with RTF, or are you hoping that they all have 
> Word associated with it?

Aardvark-

All of our users are branch offices with a standard setup - IE5, Office, 
etc. So, yes... we have a pre-defined audience and were able to make a 
choice like this. The reason we're choosing .RTF is because we can make a 
sample document in Word, strip out the header and footer, and then write 
our own stream of formatted text into the sandwich (i.e. between the header 
and footer). It's easy. Additionally, from what *I* know (which may not be 
much admittedly), in order to do PDF, you have to create a template with 
Acrobat Writer, and then write to the "fields" inside the template. We 
don't have writer. RTF is a very low-cost solution that meets our needs. If 
we had to go cross-platform, I admit, we would have chosen PDF.

> 
> > We will be creating a custom object and API for creating 
> and modifying
> > an RTF document. The documents, once created, will be saved on the
> > server for download by clients and deleted when the session 
> is ended.
> 
> done that with PDF, so i assume it's the same in concept... very 
> cool once you get that working...

This sounds like you are doing it without having a template... Is this true?
Are you creating the whoel document on the fly?

> 
> > Any comments are welcome as we have not yet begun 
> development.
> 
> sure, where's yer suggestion boxen?

jay at weberrific.org [grin] 

- Jay Turley ---------------------------------------------------------
  http://www.weberrific.org
 "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology"