Re: RPGCGI - Convert HTML page to PDF

[Simon Coulter <shc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 26/02/2010, at 1:20 AM, Aaron Bartell wrote:

> I have a customer that needs to take an auto insurance form that was  
> built
> with HTML and convert it to PDF so it can be emailed to the customer  
> after
> they write the policy.  The HTML is created and now I have been  
> tasked with
> converting it to PDF.

Umm ... maybe it's just me but why would you do it this way? Surely  
the correct approach is to build the PDF from the original data not  
try to convert HTML to PDF.

I would add a "Request PDF" link/button on the HTML and send a request  
to the host to generate PDF output. This would either be sent back to  
the browser (properly MIME tagged) where it will be displayed or  
saved, or could be written to a stream file and saved on the host. Or  
perhaps a better approach is to not bother with the HTML output but  
generate a PDF from the start.

As you've discovered there are many methods to build PDFs supported on  
OS/400 and for simple text PDFs it's not hard to write your own code.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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