Best way to create a document (html/pdf) from a template.

[error471]

Hey folks,

I know that this topic is quite often discussed, but I haven't found an information for my purpose. So, what am I going to do? I have one (or more) array(s) with information (purchases) and I want to generate a document (invoice, maybe with a logo at the top), which ideally is printable to a A4 paper. I want to avoid Word/Excel UDF. My first idea was creating a HTML document, print to pdf and display it for user action.

Is this the best/easiest way? Do you know a better option?

Best wishes.

error471

[JLogan3o13]

If you're looking for the easiest way, and have all of these restrictions (No Word, No Excel, etc.), why not just look into one of the free invoicing applications on the market, and see what you can do with AutoIt to automate that (e.g. import your array into the app to generate an invoice)? Seems better than reinventing the wheel if you are looking for easy.

[error471]

I have already a pretty advanced version of my project. The last step is the document generation. Generation in TXT already works, but is ugly. So I am trying to enhance it visually. So, HTML is the keyword I guess?

[EmilyLove]

Is there a reason you cannot use Word/Excel UDF?

[l3ill]

Hi error471,

 

I have been down this road myself; in my first version I built PDF's and filled them via script, the second far better version is using excel built forms that print to A4.

Much better than PDF's IMO. Much easier to place data in an automated environment.

my $0.02

 

cya,

Bill

 

[error471]

8 hours ago, BetaLeaf said:

Is there a reason you cannot use Word/Excel UDF?

 

3 hours ago, l3ill said:

I have been down this road myself; in my first version I built PDF's and filled them via script, the second far better version is using excel built forms that print to A4.

Much better than PDF's IMO. Much easier to place data in an automated environment.

Well, I try to replace a pretty large and user-unfriendly excel-document with my project. Using Word/Excel would be a fail. I think, I am going to try the HTML way...

[mLipok]

Just use RTF with frames.
You can also use RTF Printer UDF (look in my singature).
You can also use PDFCreator UDF (look in my singature).

or

 

 

Eventually you can use other UDF like this following:

Word UDF
Excel UDF

or my Debenu Quick PDF Library UDF:

 

Edited February 2, 2016 by mLipok

[robertocm]

One advantage of the html files would be in relation to emails: html can be sent as the body of the mail as a way of helping for fast viewing of key contents (compared with the additional step needed to open attachments).

One idea for generating the html documents and connect to data would be using the MSXML library (with the XML UDF by mLipok et al.).

But my conclusion is that excel files are more useful and can be filled from autoit scripts.

I see excel files as more open from users perspective. Because today is like a 'industry standard' and almost anyone knows how to edit, how to convert to pdf, to print, to add calculated cells, etc.

Documents (invoices, orders, etc.) designed as htm tables would be less flexible, i think.

Edited September 6, 2016 by robertocm