[sclug] Form printouts from database

[Peter Brewer]

Hi guys,

I'm wanting to create highly formatted output for printing (preferably 
pdf) from a databas - e.g. invoices with logos and tables etc etc.  
Previously I have used PHP and LaTeX for outputting printed reports from 
a database but these have always been much more simple text based 
documents.  Does anyone know a LaTeX package for doing more tightly 
designed outputs?  Alternatively, is there any other way I can achieve this?

I had (with great reservations) contemplated doing it in M$ Word with a 
mail merge but the structure of the data is too complicated as it 
contains a "one-to-many" table join.  Word can handle doing all the 
name, address, ref numbers etc at the top of the invoice but I don't 
think it can handle doing the repeated 'item, description, price' bits 
in the main body.  Am I right?  As far as I'm aware Word can only manage 
doing a mail-merge on a flat table or query from a database.

Anyway - any suggestions would be great and the more Linuxy the better!

Cheers

Pete