Re: way to output spreadsheets to postscript or PDF programmatically

[Gary Turner <kk5st2@verizon.net>]

Kevin Murphy wrote:
> I'd like to programmatically produce printable (PDF? Postscript?) 
> spreadsheet-style output of database queries with these characteristics:
>
> * line borders around cells
> * customized header and footer
> * first row should be repeated on each page
> * preferably, auto-sizing of columns, but not required
<snip>

This may be a parochial solution (I'm an html coder), but what you 
describe is default behavior for html.  Write the data to a table.

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>$field-name</th>
      ...
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tfoot>
    <tr>
      <th>$field-name</th>
      ...
    </tr>
  </tfoot>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>...</td>
      ...

The thead and tfoot will repeat at the top and bottom of each printed 
page.  From your browser, eg. Firefox, print to file.

Alternatively, run the html through html2ps.  I don't believe that will 
cause headers and footers to be printed on each page, as that is a 
browser function--not tested.

Not real elegant, but doable if you don't find a suitable report generator.

cheers,

gary

--
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make it slow, confusing, and painful to use.