Professional Reports

[Nico de Jager]

Content preview: I am looking for tips to create professional multi-page reports,
invoices, etc, preferably producing standalone files like PDFs that can be
emailed. Automatic page calculation would be great, and I'd like to include
generated and static images (e.g. graphs and logos). [...]

Content analysis details: (0.0 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
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-0.0 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, low
trust
[72.167.82.87 listed in list.dnswl.org]
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/381>

I am looking for tips to create professional multi-page reports,
invoices, etc, preferably producing standalone files like PDFs that can
be emailed. Automatic page calculation would be great, and I'd like to
include generated and static images (e.g. graphs and logos).

The solution does not have to be open source, although most of my
applications are web based for which I do prefer GNU Linux as a hosting
platform (I am a LispWorks user and have both Linux and Windows
licenses).

I know about cl-pdf and cl-typesetting, although I have only had a
fleeting glance at them. Maybe there is an easy WYSIWYG layout editor
that a list member can recommend among the hordes that Google spits
out.

How do list members typically solve this (boring) problem with their CL
applications?

Regards.
Nico

[Ryan Davis]

Content preview: We use cl-pdf and cl-typesetting directly (as part of invoice
generation), creating some text, layout, adding images, etc. We email many
of them, and then use pdftk on the command line to join all PDF invoices
into one big file for easy printing. [...]

Content analysis details: (-100.0 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
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-100 USER_IN_WHITELIST From: address is in the user's white-list
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-0.0 T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay
domain
-0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
0.0 T_DKIM_INVALID DKIM-Signature header exists but is not valid
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/382>

We use cl-pdf and cl-typesetting directly (as part of invoice
generation), creating some text, layout, adding images, etc. We email
many of them, and then use pdftk on the command line to join all PDF
invoices into one big file for easy printing.

We don't have to deal with page numbers, but I think pdftk's
"multistamp" or "multibackground" function could be probably be used
(abused?) to apply page numbers. See
http://www.pdflabs.com/docs/pdftk-man-page/

Thanks,

Ryan Davis
Acceleration.net
Director of Programming Services
2831 NW 41st street, suite B
Gainesville, FL 32606

Office: 352-335-6500 x 124
Fax: [phone]

Post by Nico de Jager
I am looking for tips to create professional multi-page reports,
invoices, etc, preferably producing standalone files like PDFs that can
be emailed. Automatic page calculation would be great, and I'd like to
include generated and static images (e.g. graphs and logos).
The solution does not have to be open source, although most of my
applications are web based for which I do prefer GNU Linux as a hosting
platform (I am a LispWorks user and have both Linux and Windows
licenses).
I know about cl-pdf and cl-typesetting, although I have only had a
fleeting glance at them. Maybe there is an easy WYSIWYG layout editor
that a list member can recommend among the hordes that Google spits
out.
How do list members typically solve this (boring) problem with their CL
applications?
Regards.
Nico
_______________________________________________
pro mailing list
http://lists.common-lisp.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pro

[Jan Tolenaar]

Content preview: On 19/05/2011 08:11, Nico de Jager wrote: > I am looking for
tips to create professional multi-page reports, > invoices, etc, preferably
producing standalone files like PDFs that can > be emailed. Automatic page
calculation would be great, and I'd like to > include generated and static
images (e.g. graphs and logos). > > The solution does not have to be open
source, although most of my > applications are web based for which I do prefer
GNU Linux as a hosting > platform (I am a LispWorks user and have both Linux
and Windows > licenses). > > I know about cl-pdf and cl-typesetting, although
I have only had a > fleeting glance at them. Maybe there is an easy WYSIWYG
layout editor > that a list member can recommend among the hordes that Google
spits > out. > > How do list members typically solve this (boring) problem
with their CL > applications? > > Regards. > Nico > > > pro mailing list

I have used cl-pdf and cl-typesetting in a commercial web application but

only for small stuff and I do not recommend it for large reports with multi-page
tables and so. You do not want to become a pixel counter. I prefer using
LaTeX now. Used it with MixTex in a C# project. Generate a LaTeX source file,
run it through xelatex a couple of times and you are done. In Lisp it should
be even better because you can write some nice macros to hide your LaTex
macros. [...]

Content analysis details: (-0.0 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
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-0.0 T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay
domain
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/383>

I am looking for tips to create professional multi-page reports,
invoices, etc, preferably producing standalone files like PDFs that can
be emailed. Automatic page calculation would be great, and I'd like to
include generated and static images (e.g. graphs and logos).
The solution does not have to be open source, although most of my
applications are web based for which I do prefer GNU Linux as a hosting
platform (I am a LispWorks user and have both Linux and Windows
licenses).
I know about cl-pdf and cl-typesetting, although I have only had a
fleeting glance at them. Maybe there is an easy WYSIWYG layout editor
that a list member can recommend among the hordes that Google spits
out.
How do list members typically solve this (boring) problem with their CL
applications?
Regards.
Nico
_______________________________________________
pro mailing list
http://lists.common-lisp.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pro

I have used cl-pdf and cl-typesetting in a commercial web application
but only for small stuff and I do not recommend it for large reports
with multi-page tables and so. You do not want to become a pixel
counter. I prefer using LaTeX now. Used it with MixTex in a C# project.
Generate a LaTeX source file, run it through xelatex a couple of times
and you are done. In Lisp it should be even better because you can write
some nice macros to hide your LaTex macros.

-Jan

[Daniel Pezely]

Content preview: On May 18, 2011, at 11:11 PM, Nico de Jager wrote: > I am
looking for tips to create professional multi-page reports, > invoices, etc,
preferably producing standalone files like PDFs that can > be emailed. Automatic
page calculation would be great, and I'd like to > include generated and
static images (e.g. graphs and logos). [...]

Content analysis details: (-0.7 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
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0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is freemail (dpezely[at]gmail.com)
-0.7 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, low
trust
[209.85.213.51 listed in list.dnswl.org]
-0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
0.0 RFC_ABUSE_POST Both abuse and postmaster missing on sender domain
0.0 T_DKIM_INVALID DKIM-Signature header exists but is not valid
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/384>

Post by Nico de Jager
I am looking for tips to create professional multi-page reports,
invoices, etc, preferably producing standalone files like PDFs that can
be emailed. Automatic page calculation would be great, and I'd like to
include generated and static images (e.g. graphs and logos).

The answer depends upon how fancy and whether or not criteria may shift radically over time.

Not for everyone and may be overkill for your particular needs:

For the extreme case, I generated LaTeX and TeX much like one /might/ produce HTML: concatenating static portions and generated portions. This gave the most flexibility of known options in 2005, when I was getting back into CL and didn't know of all the places to look for libraries. (Thanks Xach for Quicklisp and liberating us from those dark ages!)

While this resembles "not invented here" syndrome, we knew that our tables required very specialized styling unsupported by libraries found at that time: e.g., some column groups having two extra risers/labels, minimal use of grid lines, etc.

Some criticized this approach and suggested DocBook, but I perceived that to be bloated beyond my baseline loathing of xml.

I found the TeX/LaTeX approach more familiar based upon strict HTML and CSS (you can see TeX's influence on HTML and CSS), and people we hired appreciated the decision as well.

Start here: www.tug.org and www.latex-project.org

-Daniel

PS - for completeness, the project started in Python, and Lisp came later. I'd take the same approach now that I've been almost exclusively in CL since then, assuming the same criteria.

--
first name at last name dot com

[Ala'a Mohammad]

Content preview: you can use either Tex/LaTex or cl-pdf and cl-typesetting
depending on the project requirements and/or constraints. In general the way
I work is avoid going on tangent about layout perfection and pixels counting/optimization.
I'd do paper prototyping (pencil and paper), iterate as needed, then computer
sketch (using inkscape) and when i get almost satisfied look I'll start coding
the details [...]

Content analysis details: (-0.7 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is freemail (amalawi[at]gmail.com)
-0.7 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, low
trust
[209.85.220.179 listed in list.dnswl.org]
-0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
0.0 T_DKIM_INVALID DKIM-Signature header exists but is not valid
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/389>

you can use either Tex/LaTex or cl-pdf and cl-typesetting depending on
the project requirements and/or constraints.

In general the way I work is avoid going on tangent about layout
perfection and pixels counting/optimization. I'd do paper prototyping
(pencil and paper), iterate as needed, then computer sketch (using
inkscape) and when i get almost satisfied look I'll start coding the
details

you can automate a little bit of the process by doing the design in
Inkscape and then parse the output SVG file to generate the cl-pdf
and/or cl-typesetting code. (try using cl-html-parse). keep it simple
and avoid the tendency of trying to develop a full svg2cl-pdf
parser/compiler. this will help in case you wanted to hire a designer
who will take care of pixels optimization.

Regards,

Ala'a

Post by Nico de Jager
I am looking for tips to create professional multi-page reports,
invoices, etc, preferably producing standalone files like PDFs that can
be emailed. Automatic page calculation would be great, and I'd like to
include generated and static images (e.g. graphs and logos).
The solution does not have to be open source, although most of my
applications are web based for which I do prefer GNU Linux as a hosting
platform (I am a LispWorks user and have both Linux and Windows
licenses).
I know about cl-pdf and cl-typesetting, although I have only had a
fleeting glance at them. Maybe there is an easy WYSIWYG layout editor
that a list member can recommend among the hordes that Google spits
out.
How do list members typically solve this (boring) problem with their CL
applications?
Regards.
Nico
_______________________________________________
pro mailing list
http://lists.common-lisp.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pro

[Attila Lendvai]

Post by Nico de Jager
be emailed. Automatic page calculation would be great, and I'd like to
include generated and static images (e.g. graphs and logos).

we use cl-typesetting and cl-pdf.

page numbers are *kludged* by generating the entire document twice...

unicode characters were a headache, but this might be fixed since then.

we had some major headaches with this framework, because these
libraries have a tendency to fail quietly (e.g. numbers are quietly
not rendered into table cells when they don't fit).


if i were to start today, i'd either generate libreoffice's xml format
(you can exec commandline tools to generate pdf); or look into using
latex, although i have zero first-hand experience with it.

the former, if libreoffice was just a little bit smarter, could yield
a brilliant templating engine:

- you edit the initial template with libreoffice

- save it in xml

- using xml namespaces, you introduce your "unquote"'s that generate
the dynamic part. these chunks may contain libreoffice xml nodes down
deep somewhere, which LO should be smart enough to display (e.g. when
generating a table, then the xml node describing a literal table cell
would be lying somewhere under the unquote xml nodes. LO could provide
a list of nodes it understands for editing, and leave xml nodes it
doesn't understand untouched.)

- hand out the template for the users for editing with LO


we have something less sophisticated (no WYSIWYG editing under the
first unquote). unfortunately LO is not too friendly for such
use-cases (e.g. no unnamed inline styles; xml node order matters and
styles must be emitted first. argh...)

[Alexandre Rademaker]

Content preview: One possible alternative to LaTeX approach is XSL:FO approach
.Using lisp to create the XML (http://www.cliki.net/XML). Take a look at
http://www.w3.org/standards/xml/publishing "XSL-FO, the Formatting Objects
part of XSL, is an XML markup language for describing page layout and formatting."
[...]

Content analysis details: (-0.7 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
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0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is freemail (arademaker[at]gmail.com)
-0.7 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, low
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[209.85.216.172 listed in list.dnswl.org]
-0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
0.0 RFC_ABUSE_POST Both abuse and postmaster missing on sender domain
0.0 T_DKIM_INVALID DKIM-Signature header exists but is not valid
0.0 T_TO_NO_BRKTS_FREEMAIL T_TO_NO_BRKTS_FREEMAIL
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/391>

One possible alternative to LaTeX approach is XSL:FO approach .Using
lisp to create the XML (http://www.cliki.net/XML).

Take a look at http://www.w3.org/standards/xml/publishing

"XSL-FO, the Formatting Objects part of XSL, is an XML markup language
for describing page layout and formatting."

Cheers,

Alexandre Rademaker
http://web.me.com/arademaker/

[Matthew D. Swank]

Content preview: On 05/22/2011 11:05 AM, Attila Lendvai wrote: > unfortunately
LO is not too friendly for such > use-cases (e.g. no unnamed inline styles;
xml node order matters and > styles must be emitted first. argh... s/LO/Microsoft
Office 2003 xml/ as well, though the Office 2003 single file xml formats
are a convenient target for MS centric environments. [...]

Content analysis details: (-0.0 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
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-0.0 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, low
trust
[209.225.8.23 listed in list.dnswl.org]
-0.0 T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay
domain
-0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
0.0 RFC_ABUSE_POST Both abuse and postmaster missing on sender domain
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/392>

Post by Attila Lendvai
unfortunately LO is not too friendly for such
use-cases (e.g. no unnamed inline styles; xml node order matters and
styles must be emitted first. argh...

s/LO/Microsoft Office 2003 xml/ as well, though the Office 2003 single
file xml formats are a convenient target for MS centric environments.

[Vladimir Sedach]

Content preview: > if i were to start today, i'd either generate libreoffice's
xml format > (you can exec commandline tools to generate pdf); I tried this
two years ago and ran into some problems. As I remember: OpenOffice (of which
Libre Office is a fork) had a weird client-server model for command-line
use. It was a pain to set up initially, and the version of OpenOffice that
came with Debian on our servers didn't work at all. The best way to check
if a document would finish being printed as a PDF was to poll the filesystem.
It took a long time to generate the PDFs, and what's worse is that this time
varied widely with no apparent causes. The whole process was unreliable.
[...]

Content analysis details: (-100.7 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
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-0.7 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, low
trust
[209.85.216.51 listed in list.dnswl.org]
-100 USER_IN_WHITELIST From: address is in the user's white-list
0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is freemail (vsedach[at]gmail.com)
-0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
0.0 RFC_ABUSE_POST Both abuse and postmaster missing on sender domain
0.0 T_DKIM_INVALID DKIM-Signature header exists but is not valid
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/397>

Post by Attila Lendvai
if i were to start today, i'd either generate libreoffice's xml format
(you can exec commandline tools to generate pdf);

I tried this two years ago and ran into some problems. As I remember:

OpenOffice (of which Libre Office is a fork) had a weird client-server
model for command-line use. It was a pain to set up initially, and the
version of OpenOffice that came with Debian on our servers didn't work
at all. The best way to check if a document would finish being printed
as a PDF was to poll the filesystem. It took a long time to generate
the PDFs, and what's worse is that this time varied widely with no
apparent causes. The whole process was unreliable.

The templating itself was tricky. As you mentioned the node order
matters, but also there were all sorts of undocumented dependencies
between nodes (I was templating spreadsheets) and how node attributes
were used.

Maybe things have improved by now, but if I had to do the same thing
again I would not rely on Libre Office. There's too much bloat to deal
with on both the development and system administration sides.

The big draw with Libre Office was that you can let business users
easily customize the templates. A friend of mine is doing a SaaS web
app in Common Lisp, generating documents via LaTeX, and is making a
small web app that lets users customize the template layout. IMO this
is simple enough to do that it's the approach I would use today (using
CL-PDF or maybe cl-typesetting directly instead of going through
LaTeX).

Vladimir

[Vladimir Sedach]

Content preview: I just remembered one project I came across recently: http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/
I would consider using that also, and wish I had come across it earlier.
Templating or generating HTML documents is very convenient, and if you're
doing a web front end, you have all the libraries you need already. [...]

Content analysis details: (-100.7 points, 5.0 required)

pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
-0.7 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, low
trust
[209.85.216.172 listed in list.dnswl.org]
-100 USER_IN_WHITELIST From: address is in the user's white-list
0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is freemail (vsedach[at]gmail.com)
-0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
0.0 RFC_ABUSE_POST Both abuse and postmaster missing on sender domain
0.0 T_DKIM_INVALID DKIM-Signature header exists but is not valid
Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.cl-pro/405>

I just remembered one project I came across recently:

http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/

I would consider using that also, and wish I had come across it
earlier. Templating or generating HTML documents is very convenient,
and if you're doing a web front end, you have all the libraries you
need already.

Vladimir

Post by Vladimir Sedach

Post by Attila Lendvai
if i were to start today, i'd either generate libreoffice's xml format
(you can exec commandline tools to generate pdf);

OpenOffice (of which Libre Office is a fork) had a weird client-server
model for command-line use. It was a pain to set up initially, and the
version of OpenOffice that came with Debian on our servers didn't work
at all. The best way to check if a document would finish being printed
as a PDF was to poll the filesystem. It took a long time to generate
the PDFs, and what's worse is that this time varied widely with no
apparent causes. The whole process was unreliable.
The templating itself was tricky. As you mentioned the node order
matters, but also there were all sorts of undocumented dependencies
between nodes (I was templating spreadsheets) and how node attributes
were used.
Maybe things have improved by now, but if I had to do the same thing
again I would not rely on Libre Office. There's too much bloat to deal
with on both the development and system administration sides.
The big draw with Libre Office was that you can let business users
easily customize the templates. A friend of mine is doing a SaaS web
app in Common Lisp, generating documents via LaTeX, and is making a
small web app that lets users customize the template layout. IMO this
is simple enough to do that it's the approach I would use today (using
CL-PDF or maybe cl-typesetting directly instead of going through
LaTeX).
Vladimir