|
|
Posted by Peter Fox on 01/07/06 11:39
Following on from Peter Chant's message. . .
>Any thoughts in the newsgroup?
>
>Over Christmas I produced, using PHP and MySQL, a database and front end to
>record my familys family tree with a short biography and linked photos and
>locations if desired. All this works fairly well.
>
>However, as a followup I'd like to create a report this data as a report (or
>booklet) in printed format. The simplest and probably least satisfactory
>way is to format it in very simple HTML and import it into the word
>processor of choice.
>
>Better ways I assume are to export it in PDF or RTF. I am veering toward
>RTF.
Your analysis of technologies is reasonable. You have carefully listed
the features of solutions... ...but where have you listed the features
you'd like to see in the problem? Aha!
Let me guess and we'll go from there:
(1) Great Aunt Maude can be viewed using a web browser but 'wouldn't it
be nice if there was a nicely produced printed version with all the
story for presentation around the further arms of the family and those
who prefer paper.
(2) As the work is new as stands it will go through a process of "you've
left out..." and "That's not uncle Charlie but uncle Fred..." and so on.
As it happens, to produce an 'heirloom quality' copy you will need to do
word processing. Pages will get split badly, some will want to be
landscape and there's the matter of an index. Also a book would not be
just a catalogue of people one to a page etc but a family history where
the narrative aspect doesn't fit too well with the snapshot model used
by web pages.
So _for a final-finished_ version you'll need a way to export your data
to a word processor. Text or RTF would do the job. If you were to try
direct to PDF you'd be forever fiddling with formatting. It is possible
to stitch together PDF pages from different sorts into a whole but that
costs £££ unless you have Adobe Acrobat (Writer) or Pagemaker installed
already.
But as you are not yet at the 'book of family history' stage can get a
long way by the very simple expedient of a bit of CSS and a big report
(web) page which then gets 'printed' to PDF for paper use. In this you
want to be strict about the simplicity of your HTML then use CSS to
tweak layout and prettyfication. This means that you have a way to
create an up-to-date paper version as requests come in but not get
involved with fixing everything in a word processed book.
BTW : The above is written from personal experience of a Family History
project although no PHP or CSS was involved.
--
PETER FOX Not the same since the icecream business was liquidated
peterfox@eminent.demon.co.uk.not.this.bit.no.html
2 Tees Close, Witham, Essex.
Gravity beer in Essex <http://www.eminent.demon.co.uk>
Navigation:
[Reply to this message]
|