Create charts ready for print

Question

I'm looking for a solution for creating charts dynamically, that will be ready to be used in a newspaper or similar printed media.

I've got data that is updated regurarly, stored on a server. What I need is a script that takes the data and creates a (good looking) chart, and exports the chart as PDF or EPS (or a high resolution pixel image). Preferably using PHP or Java.

Does anyone know any libraries that does this, and is customizable?

Answer 1

http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/

You can do it using java and JFreeChart provides you a nice API. It provide output support for image files (including PNG and JPEG), and vector graphics file formats (including PDF, EPS and SVG)

You need to create java code to take data and supply to chart templates.

Answer 2

JasperReports - http://jasperforge.org/projects/jasperreports - can do that using Java.

Answer 3

PHP generated flash charts. Easy implementation, nice finished look.

http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/

export to pdf will have to be via some other library.

Answer 4

Google Charts is cool.

http://code.google.com/apis/charttools/index.html

You can use PHP to dynamically create the charts with data from the DB.

Print directly from a webpage.

http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/interactive_charts.html

The interactive charts are also quite cool but maybe somewhat labor intensive.