[ruby-talk:4634] RE: Printing tables

David:
> 	How can I print reports of data from Ruby incorporating 
>     graphics and fonts?

Probably all these are non-existent solutions, but it might be time to start
make these real. Here's the few different ways I can come up with now:

1) tame the beast called Mozilla, and if it doesn't print yet, 
   it will probably within few years, anyway the table, font 
   and graphics handling is all there
2) write out LaTeX and use existing, industry-standard, 
   tested-and-tried, proven technology, 
   and-here-long-buzzword-list...
3) use troff, groff or something else. But if I recall 
   correctly there's no machinery for graphics
4) if you're under wintoys, you might rehash the solution 1) 
   and produce HTML, use OLE to automate explorer rendering 
   and printing
5) it seems there's no extension for PDF libraries (while I
   think I've seen something like ClipPDF on Japanese pages), 
   and PDF surely can handle whatever output you want from 
   your printer (and screen)

And finally something, which might work already, and of course is buzz-word
compliant, elegant, and technology from the future, here already today:

6) put Ruby write the content in XML (good idea anyway), and apply 
   some automation to run some XSLT-engine to get HTML or whatever,
   *and* use XSL-FO (Formatting Objects) and tool like FOP from
   http://xml.apache.org/ to generate PDF.

Haven't done any of these, so I can't recommend anything, but I guess the
solution 6) might be the best, as you don't tie yourself to some specific
provider of software, and use mainly standards, and standard compliant
tools. The additional bonus might be the instant, or easy, webifying of your
reports.

In any case, let the community hear where you did end up when the task is
done.

	- Aleksi

BTW. what are the plans in Japan for Ruby XML support? Shall we have our own
XSL support (
http://cpan.valueclick.com/modules/by-category/11_String_Lang_Text_Proc/XML/
), maybe even XSL-FO? We should remember they're little things which can
make all the difference in the world. And little things can be simple too,
and even promote the initial implementation language ( http://www.pyxie.org
).