Create PDFs from multipage forms in WebObjects

Question

I would like to automatically generate PDF documents from WebObjects based on mulitpage forms. Assuming I have a class which can assemble the related forms (java/wod files) is there a good way to then parse the individaul forms into a PDF instead of going to the screen?

Answer 1

I'm not familiar with WebObjects, but I see you have java listed in there. iText is a java api for building pdfs. If you can access a java api from WebObjects you should be able to build pdfs that way.

Answer 2

ScArcher2>>

I have looked into different routes for creating PDFs on the fly including FOP and a few Java libraries. I think what I am really asking is if anyone has already done this in the WebObjects framework. My hope is that someone familiar with WebObjects might have done this already and have some insight that would save me some time.

Answer 3

The canonical response when asked about PDFs from WebObjects has generally been ReportMill. It's a PDF document generating framework that works a lot like WebObjects, and includes its own graphical PDF builder tool similar to WebObjects Builder and Interface Builder. You can bind elements in your generated PDFs to dynamic data in your application just as you would for a WOComponent.

They have couple of tutorial videos on the ReportMill product page that should give you an idea of how the tool works. It'll probably be a lot easier than trying to work with FOP programmatically.

Answer 4

You can use ReportMill or Jasper Reports. Compared with ReportMill Jasper Reports is Free but requires learning huge library. You can use IReport or Jasper Assistant eclipse plugin(If you are using WOLips) for building report templates. My experiance both are good.

Answer 5

ERPDFWrapper component in Project Wonder: http://webobjects.mdimension.com/hudson/job/Wonder53/89/javadoc/er/pdf/ERPDFWrapper.html

Answer 6

Jasper Reports support have been added to Project Wonder a week ago :

http://webobjects.mdimension.com/hudson/job/Wonder53/javadoc/er/jasperreports/package-summary.html

A talk about that new framework was done at WOWODC 2010, and it was recorded. Check wocommunity.org and the mailing list about that in October.