PDF Generation with database fields

[jolmesp]

Hi!

Well I have some questions and I was wondering if someone would be kind enough to answer. Here it goes.

Scenario:
The company that I work for is a non-profit educational institution. They wish to do a tax receipts project in which a student can log on to our website and get a tax receipt for all the courses they've take with us in the calendar year.

The data for the student resides in a SQL Server 2000 database table. The tax receipt has to be presented in a PDF format. We have a PDF template that we have to use. Essentially, the PDF template has to populated with values from the database.

Technical Environment: CF7, SQL 2K, Win 2003 Server, IIS 6.
Constraints: output has to be PDF format, can't upgrade to CF8

Question 1:
Can a PDF document be populated with values from a database in ColdFusion 7??

Question 2:
If so, o you know of a book/website in which this type of work is detailed (a how-to)?

Question 3:
If the answer is "no" to the above, is there a tool that can be used to accomplish this?

Thank you in advance! :)

Jolmes

[tclaremont]

This should get you going:

http://www.forta.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/7/27/cf_pdfform

[jolmesp]

Thanks tclaremont,

This would have solved it except that XPAAJ.jar, the requirement for cf_pdfform is no longer available for download. I think it has been integrated with Adobe LiveCycle ES. Does anyone know if XPAAJ.jar is still available for CF7 users?


Thank you!

[-__cfSearching__-]

> Does anyone know if XPAAJ.jar is still available for CF7 users?

No, I do not. For forms, you could do something similar with iText. An older version of it is built into MX 7. Here is an adaptation of a simple java example from the iText site. Google for more examples.

http://cfsearching.blogspot.com/2007/12/getting-started-with-itext-part-15.html

[Dan_Bracuk]

Have you considered using cfdocument to emulate the template you have to use? Then you don't need any plugins at all, just Cold Fusion.

[jolmesp]

Yea, cfdocument wouldn't work since the template has graphics and a specific place for the variable fields. It's also a government provided document.

Thanks though!