PDF Writers?

Saqib Ali asks: "I am looking for for some OpenSource PDF Writers/Creator. I found one, here. It can basically create PDFs out of common software Like OfficeSuite, Visio, Project or any other Windows Application that uses the Windows Printers. I know OpenOffice can also export to PDF. I am working on a project (fat client) where I need to dynamically create PDF reports from data stored in MySQL DB. I know I can use PHP to create PDFs, and also Apache's Cocoon (you can find an example document, here). Of course, I would like to investigate other OpenSource PDF writers as well. Do you know of any other PDF writers, that I can utilize or learn from by looking at the source-code?"

There are so many solutions...

[Karora]

In PHP I use pdf-php [sourceforge.net], which is simple and straightforward. I've used this to produce invoices for a non-profit that I voluntarily did a membership system for in PHP.

If I want to mailmerge a document I would just use OpenOffice 1.1 - it does both parts perfectly well.

There are heaps of "printer driver" approaches as well, and of course there is Ghostscript, which has been doing this for many years.

Re:XML - FO - PDF

[pi_rules]

I second the parent's suggestion. Been there, done that, and it rocked, even when FOP was at the 0.17 release. It worked pretty darned well, and you just had to make another XSLT sheet to turn the document into HTML.

Yes, it's a big task and not the "quick and dirty" method but it works really well and gives you exactly the results that you want if you want to put the time into it. The XML+XSLTT -> processor model is definately the way to for things that you expect to last a while into the future.