views:

99

answers:

3

Hi, I am working on generating a document for printing. It should use a specific TTF font and everything must be printed with vector graphics (for quality). Some of the text should be replaced automatically (e.g. current time). Also it should include a custom-generated EPS image with a chart.

Ideally I would like to have some kind of document template where the text could be replaced easily, and it would be nice if it could import the image through path. But I am not sure which format could be good for this. Best I can come to think of is LaTeX, but I don't like that it's a lot of manual work to use it with TTF... any other ideas?

By the way, I am using OS X...

A: 

You could blend most of those elements to an EPS using imagemagick or gimp script-fu

SpliFF
I can't use raster graphics - the quality decreases a lot with that.
kotlinski
If you know your minimum target printer resolution in advance then there's no reason why your rasterisation should be noticeably worse than the printers internal process. Even if you plan to distribute the resulting file you should get reasonable file sizes after zipping, especially if the document is going to be greyscale.
SpliFF
Yes, but for some reason printing bitmaps on this printer looks really crap, even at high resolution. It's a cheap point-of-sale one...
kotlinski
A: 

There are several products out there that will build you a PDF programmatically. I've only used the Coldfusion Report Builder myself and that may not be practical/affordable for your application. If your budget allows I'd look into a commercial reporting product. I know Adobe have several that will generate Flash, FlashPaper or PDF output.

SpliFF
Thanks, but there is no budget for that. Plus, that we don't want to depend on non-open source products if not necessary.
kotlinski
+1  A: 

Memoir package is very flexible for your special layouts. Xetex uses your system fonts (Installed together with TexLive).

zilupe
I wish I could give this double +1!
kotlinski