Re: desire your recommendation for our specific HTML -> PDF project

On Fri, 2010-12-03 at 18:11 -0500, Govinda wrote: > Hi all > > I have a question which I see from googling has been discussed at > length.. but I want to know what you would recommend based on our > particular needs. I want to be on the right track before I find out a- > week-of-work later that I chose the wrong tool (a tool which works, > but whose peculiarity, in the end, would rule it out for our project). > > We have a dynamic HTML page that displays 30 "address labels" within > the dimensions of one single US-letter-size document. We want the > user to be able to print the single letter-sized page and have the > content line up perfectly (as it does in the browser) for the Avery > address label (printed) sticker paper which they will use to then peel > the 30 stickers and affix to physical product. The HTML page is ~ > 200k worth of HTML (<div>s and <table>s), text, gifs, jpgs, a barcode > PNG graphic, and heavy use of exacting CSS - CSS2 as well as a touch > of CSS3 (CSS3 property transform), i.e. this: > /* --- for firefox, safari, chrome, etc. --- */ > -webkit-transform: rotate(90deg); > -moz-transform: rotate(90deg); > /* --- for ie --- */ > filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.BasicImage(rotation=1); > > ...which I use to rotate (90 degrees) a barcode which I grab off of > this site/service: > http://www.barcodesinc.com/generator/index.php > > We could drop that barcode PNG/service only if I could easily replace > it with another... and the barcode must be rotated 90 degrees - to > thus fit in its tiny (vertically-oriented) alloted slot on each of the > 30 "address label cells". > > A thread on stackOverflow has people making recommendations all over > the map.. as I would expect - our needs and experiences are all over > the map. > > - I wish we had budget for the server version of PrinceXML ;-) ... but > no luck. > - I have never used any PHP libraries like FPDF or TCPDF, but am > concerned about speed; corporate users (on various browsers) will need > the pdf in real time. They may be patient and wait for the final PDF > if keep the solution free.. but if it takes minutes to generate, that > is a minus point. > Also I am not sure how good these are for HTML -> PDF (as opposed to > straight PDF from scratch).. plus not sure how good is the CSS > support. Our page is a bit of an HTML/CSS kludge. > - I have used the command-line tools HTMLDOC and wkpdf, but the former > lacked the CSS I need now, and the latter introduces margin that kills > it for exact address-label formatting (plus this project is on Linux). > > My PHP skills are not super strong yet.. but I am willing to do > whatever it takes to pull any solution together. > In case you have any familiarity with any PDF generation tools that > you feel would fit the need here, then *please advise*! > > Thanks! > -Govinda > > > ------------ > Govinda > govinda(DOT)webdnatalk(AT)gmail(DOT)com > Personally, I use FPDF [1] to generate PDF's on the fly. It has a lot of "addons" that people have created, and some of those, are barcodes. use it to generate shipping/packing labels for a client, and it creates about 1000+ at a time, each containing 5 code128, and 1 QR code (on the same label). I've used the FPDF with the rendering that includes the image from memory (as i have another app that creates all the barcodes in memory). Anyway, I would look into that if pdf is the way you're going. There is also html2pdf, but if you're looking for exact specifications, and sizes, then I wouldn't personally use pure CSS, i would create my own PDF. my shipping labels take < 20 seconds to create a 1500page pdf, with all those barcodes, so creating a 30 label page, i can't see taking more than 1 second to do. just my $0.02 Steve [1] http://www.fpdf.org