Pretty report printing

[Dale Strickland-Clark]

Dale Strickland-Clark <dale at out-think.NOSPAMco.uk> wrote:

>I need to produce a bunch of standard reports from a database and am
>considering Python.
>
>The reports need to be pretty but probably text only (although borders
>and boxes would be nice). They should be previewable online and
>printable to any Windows printer.
>
>I like the idea of using HTML but it doesn't understand the printed
>page so headings, headers and footers are trickey.
>
>Other options include PDF (which I'd have to research cos I know
>nothing about it) and driving Word or Excel through COM to build pages
>- which isn't an attractive thought.
>
>How have others tackled this problem?
>
>Thanks
>Dale Strickland-Clark
>Out-Think Ltd
>Business Technology Consultants
>

Thanks for the info. I'm looking into the PDF stuff at ReportLabs but
am a bit confused about the compression. This may not be an issue as
reports are unlikely to be transmitted anywhere but you can be pretty
sure that if I don't do it, I'll regret it.

Something I read on ReportLabs site suggested that I need to rebuild
Python to get compressed PDF files. Is this right?
--
Dale Strickland-Clark
Out-Think Ltd
Business Technology Consultants