[dba-Tech] PDF from ASP

Steven W. Erbach serbach at new.rr.com
Tue Jul 6 14:56:05 CDT 2004


Mark,

>> Is this an inter- or intra- net application? <<

INTERnet. I've recommended that the SQL Server capacity be rented so that his employees can access it when they're at customer sites. He only has a small staff; I'm his de facto IT department.

>> Will the majority of users necessarily need a downloadable .pdf for each and every query? <<

No, just for the purposes of printing the main report: an ergonomic analysis of an industrial job position; that is, how much does an employee lift, how much bending and walking does he do, what physical skills are necessary, what ergonomic recommendations have been made to make the job safer, etc. There are also between 6 and 24 snapshots of the employee performing his various tasks. This all comes out beautifully in Access. The client is familiar with PDF files being downloaded from the web. I told him that I didn't know of a way to format an on-demand report into a PDF file that could be viewed immediately. I told him I'd ask around and try to get a definitive answer. Again, my suspicion is that it can't be done easily if at all.

He's mystified that a report can't be formatted nicely with page breaks and headers and footers as in a word processing document or as in Access. I've checked out the Adobe web site and I find that Javascript in Acrobat allows one to "produce database-driven PDF files," but it looks like Acrobat Server is necessary. Besides I'd have to learn it from the ground up.

So, do you have any feel for Acrobat under Javascript control?

Regards,
 
Steve Erbach
Scientific Marketing
Neenah, WI
920-969-0504
 
"I think that the send button actually turns brains on." -- Bryan Carbonnell





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