Re: [aclug-L] Document merge/formatting

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

tdoubrav@xxxxxxxx writes:

> Hey, all!  I can't seem to find time for the meetings, but I do enjoy the
> e-conversation!
> 
> What would be the best way to get info from a database or flat file, into a
> document for printing?  The hard part:  The information would be going into a
> form with strict layout requirements (membership id card, on card stock paper)

If you've got Perl knowledge, you can do something very easily with
Perl.

> Can LyX allow you to say "Put this block of text at (x,y)" on the page?

Nope, LyX is designed as a tool to prevent you from having to do
that.  With LaTeX, it is probably possible.  It would be fairly easy
with Postscript, if you know the language.  I don't know *roff myself, 
so I can't comment there.

It's also possible to take a document from some program -- ie a word
processor -- and save it as postscript, with placeholders.  Then a
shell script can come through, pipe it through sed, and replace the
placeholders with the actual data.

Hopefully I've pointed you in the right direction.  Let me know if you 
need more detail.

> 
> Can it be done programmaticly using the normal unix formatting
> (groff->postscript)?
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Tyler
> 
> ----------------------------------
> E-Mail: tdoubrav@xxxxxxxx
> Date: 24-Apr-99
> Time: 10:50:01
> 
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-- 
John Goerzen   Linux, Unix consulting & programming   jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx |
Developer, Debian GNU/Linux (Free powerful OS upgrade)       www.debian.org |
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