PDF Forms - a new approach (At least for us)

[Bill Campbell]

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014, Tom Podnar wrote:
>Hi everyone. 

>In 1996 or so we designed the BackupEDGE invoicing, licensing and
>activation form system to use filePro and a commercial form generator
>program and some customized print spooler scripts, which locked most of our
>forms into PCL overlays. This was the best solution for printing and faxing
>back then for us. Unfortunately, it kept us locked into the technology
>because the fax software company is no longer in business and some stuff
>was hardcoded into it. For PDFs, we've been printing and scanning-to-PDF
>for quite a while, resulting in large, ugly PDFs.

I had a similar problem in 1995 or so before PDFs were common.

My solution was to create groff (actually xroff in 1995) input
from the export, then use groff to create PostScript (PS) output.
I created an Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) file using xfig for
the background to be overlaid with the invoice data.  The average
PS file is about 12k.  At that time I was using Sam Leffler's
FlexFax software which handled PS well.  Since then FlexFax was
renamed HylaFax, and it's added support for PDF files.

When PDF files became common, I used the ps2pdf from ghostscript
to convert the groff created PS files as I wanted both types.

The average size of these PDF files is now about 4.8Kb.  They
don't include any encryption, but that's easily handled by email
software.

Bill
-- 
INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
Voice:          (206) 236-1676  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820
Fax:            (206) 232-9186  Skype: jwccsllc (206) 855-5792

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good
in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs,
or impede their efforts to obtain it. -- John Stuart Mill, 1859