The Daily Biff - 2007 03 21

Currently playing on my computer (tune in: pls, asx)

Wed, 21 Mar 2007

Create PDF Documents On-The-Fly
One of the things that we are doing for the Skyline High School Class of 1987 Reunion is compiling a journal that includes the answers to a small questionnaire. This was done for the 10-year, but it was all with pencil/paper and postal mail. The person who put it together for the 10-year flat out refuses to do it again manually; and I can't say I blame her. So, I suggested we offer the questionnaire on-line and build the journal pages from the answers on-the-fly (as PDFs or as HTML documents). We could even have the classmate include a picture I promised.

At the time, I didn't really know how I was going to accomplish the task, but I figured it wouldn't be that hard. Thankfully, it wasn't. Using the PDF::API2 perl library and a very handy PDF::API2 tutorial as a crutch, I authored a web app that administers the questionnaire, collects the answers, allows the user to upload a picture, and then builds a PDF file that includes both the answers and the picture. Picture placement is determined based on the aspect ratio of the photo, and the font is resized incrementally from 13-pt down to as low as 8-pt (if necessary) to fit everything on one page. After the document is produced, the classmate can then choose to make the document public or private... in either case, a copy is e-mailed to the person compiling the journal. It's pretty slick. Here is a sample of the questionnaire results (in PDF form) for review.

Source code is available upon your polite request.

:: Posted by rus on Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:04 pm
:: Filed under /tech

[2 comments] [permanent link]

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