[Zope] Reports and barcodes.

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Tue, Sep 28, 1999 at 09:38:51AM +0200, Andreas Kostyrka wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, chas wrote:
> > Perhaps I'm missing the point but, for the barcodes, why not 
> > just generate GIFs ? Then you could link them into webpages or
> > wherever. Faster, no plugins, leaves you open to choose another
> > format for the actual reports.
> Well, the problem with GIFs is, that you cannot control which
> page layout the browser will use to print the image.

Precisely!

That's exactly they point people have been trying to make.  If you need
to generate reports out of an app in Zope, you probably shouldn't be
shoehorning them through the browser.  You more than likely want to
generate either raw postscript, or a command file for an intermediate
processor (ie: report writer) and hand that your data.

Then, let that get shipped out to a printer somehow (even if that
"somehow" is to put the proper MIME type on it and ship it out to the
browser.

This is a good architectural question, Coolsters: what _is_ the report
writing approach that's recommended here?

> Still doesn't solve the problem: For real form printing with dot matrix
> printers one usually want to print ASCII and not bitmaps.

Stipulated. 

If all you want to print is ASCII, it's even easier.  Your only problem
is the barcodes.  Do your printers have a Code39 font, either native,
or on a card?  If you can, you _always_ wanna do barcodes in hardware.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra@baylink.com
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