Thanks Sean!
Since pdf has an open specification, I will likely use it. I normally use C++, but I did recently use perl to parse printed patient info, because of its pattern capabilities. I used a perl library to create XML patient files, the idea being that I could access these from Java or C++, but if there is a handy perl library for pdf, I might just stick with perl.
-Dan
Sean Walberg wrote:
On 1/30/07, *Dan Martin* <ummar143@cc.umanitoba.ca mailto:ummar143@cc.umanitoba.ca> wrote:
The display could be done with XHTML. The printed forms could be done using LaTeX commands, but I imagine it would be painful to program. I could learn postscript. I assume Acrobat's pdf is proprietary and cannot be used. I have heard of an XML based page layout language, and such a solution would lend itself to an XSLT transformation.PDF is a published specification, there are several good perl and php libraries for working with it (I recall reading that Adobe is seeking standards approval for it, too). I'd recommend against PostScript, while it is fun (especially if you had an HP-48 calculator at some point) it's a pain if you want to get away from text and line art, not to mention worrying about what each individual printer (or driver) is going to do to your output.
Two other ideas would be GD and ImageMagick. Both generate an image and offer libraries for php and perl.
Sean
-- Sean Walberg < sean@ertw.com mailto:sean@ertw.com> http://ertw.com/