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Thanks Sean!<br>
<br>
Since pdf has an open specification, I will likely use it. I normally
use C++, but I did recently use perl to parse printed patient info,
because of its pattern capabilities. I used a perl library to create
XML patient files, the idea being that I could access these from Java
or C++, but if there is a handy perl library for pdf, I might just
stick with perl.<br>
<br>
-Dan<br>
<br>
Sean Walberg wrote:<br>
<blockquote
cite="midcc43a8f80701301819v429cd790y2c75fff63c219d1b@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">On 1/30/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Dan Martin</b>
<<a href="mailto:ummar143@cc.umanitoba.ca">ummar143@cc.umanitoba.ca</a>>
wrote:
<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">The
display could be done with XHTML. The printed forms could be done<br>
using LaTeX commands, but I imagine it would be painful to program. I<br>
could learn postscript. I assume Acrobat's pdf is proprietary and<br>
cannot be used. I have heard of an XML based page layout language, and<br>
such a solution would lend itself to an XSLT transformation.</blockquote>
<div><br>
<br>
PDF is a published specification, there are several good perl and php
libraries for working with it (I recall reading that Adobe is seeking
standards approval for it, too). I'd recommend against PostScript,
while it is fun (especially if you had an HP-48 calculator at some
point) it's a pain if you want to get away from text and line art, not
to mention worrying about what each individual printer (or driver) is
going to do to your output.
<br>
<br>
Two other ideas would be GD and ImageMagick. Both generate an image
and offer libraries for php and perl.<br>
<br>
Sean<br>
</div>
<br>
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<br>
-- <br>
Sean Walberg <<a href="mailto:sean@ertw.com">
sean@ertw.com</a>> <a href="http://ertw.com/">http://ertw.com/</a>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-Dan
Dr. Dan Martin, MD, CCFP, BSc, BCSc (Hon)
GP Hospital Practitioner
Computer Science grad student
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ummar143@cc.umanitoba.ca">ummar143@cc.umanitoba.ca</a>
(204) 831-1746
answering machine always on
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