Re: Web Reporting Tools
Date: 1999/08/09
Message-ID: <37AE6EF6.4D904574_at_usa.net>
Carfield Yim wrote:
>
> Can you tell more about how to output to .pdf
I not use output to pdf in real project,but may write part readme from
PHP doc:
( Sorry, if very big write. )
You can use the PDF functions in PHP to create PDF files if you have the PDF library by Thomas Merz (available at http://www.ifconnection.de/~tm/). Please consult the excelent documentation for pdflib shipped with the source distribution of pdflib or available at
http://www.ifconnection.de/~tm/software/pdflib/PDFlib-0.6.pdf. It provides a very good overview of what pdflib capable of doing. Most of the functions in pdflib and the PHP module have the same name. Theparameters are also identical. You should also understand some of the concepts of PDF or Postscript to efficiently use this module. All lengths and coordinates are measured in Postscript points. There are generally 72 PostScript points to an inch, but this depends on the output resolution.
There is another PHP module for pdf document creation based on FastIO's ClibPDF. It has a slightly different API. Check the ClibPDF functions section for details.
Currently two versions of pdflib are supported: 0.6 and 2.0. It is recommended that you use the newer version since it has more features and fixes some problems which required a patch for the old version. Unfortunately, the changes of the pdflib API in 2.0 have been so severe that even some PHP functions had to be altered. Here is a list of changes:
The Info structure does not exist anymore. Therefore the function
pdf_get_info() is obsolete and the functions pdf_set_info_creator(), pdf_set_info_title(), pdf_set_info_author(), pdf_set_info_subject() and pdf_set_info_keywords() do not take the info structure as the firstparameter but the pdf document. This also means that the pdf document must be opened before these functions can be called. The way a new document is opened has changed. The function pdf_open() takes only one parameter which is the file handle of a file opened with fopen().
The pdf module introduces two new types of variables (if pdflib 2.0 is used it is only one new type). They are called pdfdoc and pdfinfo (pdfinfo is not existent if pdflib 2.0 is used. pdfdoc is a pointer to a pdf document and almost all functions need it as its first parameter. pdfinfo contains meta data about the PDF document. It has to be set before pdf_open() is called.
In order to output text into a PDF document you will need to provide the afm file for each font. Afm files contain font metrics for a Postscript font. By default these afm files are searched for in a directory named 'fonts' relative to the directory where the PHP script is located. (Again, this was true for pdflib 0.6, newer versions do not not neccessarily need the afm files.)
Most of the functions are fairly easy to use. The most difficult part is probably to create a very simple pdf document at all. The following example should help to get started. It uses the PHP functions for pdflib 0.6. It creates the file test.pdf with one page. The page contains the text "Times-Roman" in an outlined 30pt font. The text is also underlined.
Example 1. Creating a PDF document with pdflib 0.6 <?php
$fp = fopen("test.pdf", "w");
$info = PDF_get_info();
pdf_set_info_author($info, "Uwe Steinmann"); PDF_set_info_title($info, "Test for PHP wrapper of PDFlib 0.6"); PDF_set_info_author($info, "Name of Author"); pdf_set_info_creator($info, "See Author"); pdf_set_info_subject($info, "Testing");
$pdf = PDF_open($fp, $info);
PDF_begin_page($pdf, 595, 842); PDF_add_outline($pdf, "Page 1"); pdf_set_font($pdf, "Times-Roman", 30, 4); pdf_set_text_rendering($pdf, 1); PDF_show_xy($pdf, "Times Roman outlined", 50, 750); pdf_moveto($pdf, 50, 740); pdf_lineto($pdf, 330, 740); pdf_stroke($pdf); PDF_end_page($pdf); PDF_close($pdf);
fclose($fp);
echo "<A HREF=getpdf.php3>finished</A>"; ?>
The PHP script getpdf.php3 just outputs the pdf document. <?php
$fp = fopen("test.pdf", "r");
header("Content-type: application/pdf");
fpassthru($fp);
fclose($fp);
?>
Doing the same with pdflib 2.0 looks like the following:
Example 2. Creating a PDF document with pdflib 2.0
<?php
$fp = fopen("test.pdf", "w");
$pdf = PDF_open($fp);
pdf_set_info_author($pdf, "Uwe Steinmann"); PDF_set_info_title($pdf, "Test for PHP wrapper of PDFlib 2.0"); PDF_set_info_author($pdf, "Name of Author"); pdf_set_info_creator($pdf, "See Author"); pdf_set_info_subject($pdf, "Testing"); PDF_begin_page($pdf, 595, 842); PDF_add_outline($pdf, "Page 1"); pdf_set_font($pdf, "Times-Roman", 30, 4); pdf_set_text_rendering($pdf, 1); PDF_show_xy($pdf, "Times Roman outlined", 50, 750); pdf_moveto($pdf, 50, 740); pdf_lineto($pdf, 330, 740); pdf_stroke($pdf); PDF_end_page($pdf); PDF_close($pdf);
fclose($fp);
echo "<A HREF=getpdf.php3>finished</A>"; ?>
The PHP script getpdf.php3 is the same as above.
The pdflib distribution contains a more complex example which creates a
serious of pages with an analog clock. This example converted into PHP
using pdflib 2.0 looks as the following (you can see the same example in
the documentation for the clibpdf module):
Example 3. pdfclock example from pdflib 2.0 distribution
<?php
$pdffilename = "clock.pdf";
$radius = 200;
$margin = 20;
$pagecount = 40;
$fp = fopen($pdffilename, "w");
$pdf = pdf_open($fp);
pdf_set_info_creator($pdf, "pdf_clock.php3"); pdf_set_info_author($pdf, "Uwe Steinmann"); pdf_set_info_title($pdf, "Analog Clock");
while($pagecount-- > 0) {
pdf_begin_page($pdf, 2 * ($radius + $margin), 2 * ($radius +
$margin));
pdf_set_transition($pdf, 4); /* wipe */ pdf_set_duration($pdf, 0.5);
pdf_translate($pdf, $radius + $margin, $radius + $margin);
pdf_save($pdf);
pdf_setrgbcolor($pdf, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
/* minute strokes */
pdf_setlinewidth($pdf, 2.0);
for ($alpha = 0; $alpha < 360; $alpha += 6) {
pdf_rotate($pdf, 6.0);
pdf_moveto($pdf, $radius, 0.0);
pdf_lineto($pdf, $radius-$margin/3, 0.0);
pdf_stroke($pdf);
}
pdf_restore($pdf);
pdf_save($pdf);
/* 5 minute strokes */
pdf_setlinewidth($pdf, 3.0);
for ($alpha = 0; $alpha < 360; $alpha += 30) {
pdf_rotate($pdf, 30.0);
pdf_moveto($pdf, $radius, 0.0);
pdf_lineto($pdf, $radius-$margin, 0.0);
pdf_stroke($pdf);
}
$ltime = getdate();
/* draw hour hand */
pdf_save($pdf);
pdf_rotate($pdf,-(($ltime['minutes']/60.0)+$ltime['hours']-3.0)*30.0);
pdf_moveto($pdf, -$radius/10, -$radius/20);
pdf_lineto($pdf, $radius/2, 0.0);
pdf_lineto($pdf, -$radius/10, $radius/20);
pdf_closepath($pdf);
pdf_fill($pdf);
pdf_restore($pdf);
/* draw minute hand */
pdf_save($pdf);
pdf_rotate($pdf,-(($ltime['seconds']/60.0)+$ltime['minutes']-15.0)*6.0);
pdf_moveto($pdf, -$radius/10, -$radius/20);
pdf_lineto($pdf, $radius * 0.8, 0.0);
pdf_lineto($pdf, -$radius/10, $radius/20);
pdf_closepath($pdf);
pdf_fill($pdf);
pdf_restore($pdf);
/* draw second hand */
pdf_setrgbcolor($pdf, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0);
pdf_setlinewidth($pdf, 2);
pdf_save($pdf);
pdf_rotate($pdf, -(($ltime['seconds'] - 15.0) * 6.0));
pdf_moveto($pdf, -$radius/5, 0.0);
pdf_lineto($pdf, $radius, 0.0);
pdf_stroke($pdf);
pdf_restore($pdf);
/* draw little circle at center */
pdf_circle($pdf, 0, 0, $radius/30);
pdf_fill($pdf);
pdf_restore($pdf);
pdf_end_page($pdf);
}
$pdf = pdf_close($pdf);
fclose($fp);
echo "<A HREF=getpdf.php3?filename=".$pdffilename.">finished</A>";
?>
The PHP script getpdf.php3 just outputs the pdf document.
<?php
$fp = fopen($filename, "r");
header("Content-type: application/pdf");
fpassthru($fp);
fclose($fp);
?>
Table of Contents
PDF_get_info Returns a default info structure for a pdf document PDF_set_info_creator Fills the creator field of the info structure PDF_set_info_title Fills the title field of the info structure PDF_set_info_subject Fills the subject field of the info structure PDF_set_info_keywords Fills the keywords field of the info structure PDF_set_info_author Fills the author field of the info structure PDF_open Opens a new pdf document PDF_close Closes a pdf document PDF_begin_page Starts new page PDF_end_page Ends a page PDF_show Output text at current position PDF_show_xy Output text at given position PDF_set_font Selects a font face and size PDF_set_leading Sets distance between text lines PDF_set_text_rendering Determines how text is rendered PDF_set_horiz_scaling Sets horizontal scaling of text PDF_set_text_rise Sets the text rise PDF_set_text_matrix Sets the text matrix PDF_set_text_pos Sets text position PDF_set_char_spacing Sets character spacing PDF_set_word_spacing Sets spacing between words PDF_continue_text Outputs text in next line PDF_stringwidth Returns width of text using current font PDF_save Saves the current environment PDF_restore Restores formerly saved environment PDF_translate Sets origin of coordinate system PDF_scale Sets scaling PDF_rotate Sets rotation PDF_setflat Sets flatness PDF_setlinejoin Sets linejoin parameter PDF_setlinecap Sets linecap parameter PDF_setmiterlimit Sets miter limit PDF_setlinewidth Sets line width PDF_setdash Sets dash pattern PDF_moveto Sets current point PDF_curveto Draws a curve PDF_lineto Draws a line PDF_circle Draws a circle PDF_arc Draws an arc PDF_rect Draws a rectangle PDF_closepath Closes path PDF_stroke Draws line along path PDF_closepath_stroke Closes path and draws line along path PDF_fill Fills current path PDF_fill_stroke Fills and strokes current path PDF_closepath_fill_stroke Closes, fills and strokes current path PDF_endpath Ends current path PDF_clip Clips to current path PDF_setgray_fill Sets filling color to gray value PDF_setgray_stroke Sets drawing color to gray value PDF_setgray Sets drawing and filling color to gray value PDF_setrgbcolor_fill Sets filling color to rgb color value PDF_setrgbcolor_stroke Sets drawing color to rgb color value PDF_setrgbcolor Sets drawing and filling color to rgb color value PDF_add_outline Adds bookmark for current page PDF_set_transition Sets transition between pages PDF_set_duration Sets duration between pages PDF_open_gif Opens a GIF image PDF_open_memory_image Opens an image created with PHP's imagefunctions
PDF_open_jpeg Opens a JPEG image PDF_close_image Closes an image PDF_place_image Places an image on the page PDF_put_image Stores an image in the PDF for later use PDF_execute_image Places a stored image on the page ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Denis wrote: > > > sja wrote: > > > > > > I am currently investigating tools for the generation of reports from > > > multiple databases to an Intranet. If anybody knows of a suitable tool or > > > better still has any personal experience of a suitable tool, I would be > > > grateful for your input. Evaluations and links most welcome. > > > > > > Please copy any responses to sja_at_tinet.ie > > > > > We use Apache www server and PHP modules. PHP is a server-side > > HTML-embedded scripting language.Connect to Oracle,DBASE,Sybase.Output > > format txt,dbf,pdf,html. > > > > Denis (star-dragon_at_usa.net)Received on Mon Aug 09 1999 - 00:00:00 CEST