# PDF Shipping Order from Rails...BOUNTY **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [December 19, 2005, 11:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685 "2005-12-19T23:09:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michael)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 11:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685/1 "2005-12-19T23:09:49Z")
Hello Rails Community, I put this request out to the community a few weeks ago and got one reply and he ended up being too busy to do it. So, let me try again. I have a need to generate a shipping order from an application that is rails driven. All the data for the shipping order is contained within two tables. I feel like it it too cumbersome to map out all the coordinates for the data and the frames, etc… My thought was that maybe a simpler way existed to do it - but based on my lack of response perhaps I am incorrect. I have a sample of the shipping order. You can use your own system to generate it, just please make sure you have placeholders where all the database stuff goes so that I can easily change it out. E.g. - If a cell has the order number, then i would expect to see something like @order.order\_number in the file you deliver to me so that I can map it to my own database columns. Please reply to me directly if you can help and let me know how much you will charge for this task and what kind of time frame you can deliver it in. My need is pretty immediate because right now I’m doing it by connecting OpenOffice Writer to the mysql db and then exporting to PDF. I would much rather click a button from the rails app and have this done for me. Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help. The PDF::Writer samples are great but I need something more than Hello World and don’t have the time to map out all the coordinates for everything! Maybe I’m going about this all wrong! Suggestions? Thanks, Michael ---
**Author:** ![michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michael)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 11:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685/2 "2005-12-20T11:32:53Z")
Michael You could have more success on [http://www.rentacoder.com](http://www.rentacoder.com) (send an invitation to all the people with “ruby” in their profile) Alain ---
**Author:** ![michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michael)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 4:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685/3 "2005-12-20T16:57:48Z")
Thank you Alain… Michael Alain R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Michael You could have more success on [http://www.rentacoder.com](http://www.rentacoder.com) (send an invitation to all the people with “ruby” in their profile) Alain * * * Rails mailing list removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) ---
**Author:** ![michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michael)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685/4 "2005-12-20T22:08:14Z")
Actually, the question in this thread is an interesting one… Is there a better way to use PDF::Writer than to provide specific coordinates for everything? On the wiki page, HTMLDOC is suggested. Why isn’t this a more common solution? It seems like it provides a better answer – it can produce PDF directly but has the benefit of formatting like tables and so on. PDF::Writer seems difficult to use because everything must be placed manually. So Michael-- why not use HTMLDOC? I presume you’re already writing HTML. BTW – I will need to generate PDFs here shortly and am not yet fully informed on the subject. I’m trying to decide why you want to use PDF::Writer over HTMLDOC. Jake Michael wrote: > Hello Rails Community, > > I put this request out to the community a few weeks ago and got one > reply and he ended up being too busy to do it. ---
**Author:** ![michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michael)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 12:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685/5 "2005-12-21T00:40:27Z")
Jake, I’m not using HTMLDoc because when I looked at the documentation on it, it appeared to be a program that runs in the background (or similar) and I just wanted something quick and simple to call, execute, finish. Perhaps I have it wrong, but it sure reminded me of an acrobat type of application (like distiller) that runs batch mode/single item mode in the background and I didn’t want this. PDF::Writer seems like the logical choice for me - but it would be nice if it were easier to use. Perhaps others would argue with this and it may just be my own ignorance. In my dream world, here is what would happen: 1. I could create a PDF, pieces at a time. E.g. - I would give an HTML string/file as a header, another html string/file as a footer, and several html strings in the middle. Or, just one big HTML string would be fine too. It would parse the html, pull in the images as necessary and create a PDF document for me. It would take care of positioning of all the data. It would create page breaks as necessary or allow me to specify hard breaks with some sort of special delimiter, method call, etc… It would read in all the font information as specified in the html/css style sheet. 2. I could give an output path and file name to put the completed document. Then, when it is done doing its thing, I could redirect the browser to that page. Better yet, I could just navigate to an action/view and when that action completes it has the pdf in the browser for me (like an rhtml file but instead it loads a pdf). 3. I could have a " pdf template" and just supply it with an array of values to do string substitution. This would avoid the necessity to create a complete PDF each time. Instead, it would use a template pdf document and replace appropriate values with the values supplied in the array/hash. 4. It would be so easy to use that even I could use it! 🙂 That’s my wish list! If it is already in one of these products AND the products are licensed MIT/GNU Public/etc… then please someone chime in and save me from my ignorance. Thanks, Michael ---
**Author:** ![michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michael)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 12:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685/6 "2005-12-21T00:52:35Z")
On 20/12/05, Jake J. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Actually, the question in this thread is an interesting one… Is there > a better way to use PDF::Writer than to provide specific coordinates for > everything? > > On the wiki page, HTMLDOC is suggested. Why isn’t this a more common > solution? It seems like it provides a better answer – it can produce > PDF directly but has the benefit of formatting like tables and so on. > PDF::Writer seems difficult to use because everything must be placed > manually. The wiki page, in this case, is probably wrong. For highly formatted documents, yes, you do have to place certain things and you’ll have to manipulate margins. But if you haven’t, already, look at the manual for PDF::Writer. PDF::Writer has supported tables for a long time. Before it was 1.0, even. I have been asked to do some work to help other things, but I am extremely busy at work and have had exactly _zero_ time even for critical PDF::Writer releases (1.1.4). ## -austin Austin Z. \* removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid \* Alternate: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid ---
**Author:** ![michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michael)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 6:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685/7 "2005-12-21T06:42:40Z")
> The wiki page, in this case, is probably wrong. For highly formatted > documents, yes, you do have to place certain things and you’ll have to > manipulate margins. But if you haven’t, already, look at the manual > for PDF::Writer. > > PDF::Writer has supported tables for a long time. Before it was 1.0, > even. I have been asked to do some work to help other things, but I am > extremely busy at work and have had exactly _zero_ time even for > critical PDF::Writer releases (1.1.4). > > -austin Austin- I had a chance to look more in-depth at PDF::Writer today. Odd that I never have time to do anything until I absolutely must. In any case, I agree – I think your PDF::Writer does handle most of the stuff I thought it couldn’t. I’m anxious to try it out now and see if I can get good results without too much manual labor. I will be producing somewhat simple, but dynamic forms that depend heavily on user input. I’m curious to see how it handles them. Jake ---
**Author:** ![michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@michael](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michael)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 9:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pdf-shipping-order-from-rails-bounty/50685/8 "2005-12-21T21:37:10Z")
On 12/21/05, Jake J. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > -austin > > too much manual labor. I will be producing somewhat simple, but dynamic > > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) I have used HTMLDOC and PDFWriter. HTMLDOC will not currently process style sheets, so depending upon how you format things this may be a significant issue (was for me). PDFWriter is defiantly more work (especially if you already have formatted HTML), but you get very precise control over the layout. Additionally, if you do your work right with PDFWriter you write a helper class that makes the job easier the next time (like the table stuff). Thanks Austin 🙂 pth