[Gllug] Libraries for writing OpenOffice .sxw files?

[Tethys]

Richard Jones writes:

>> I believe so. Where is the data coming from that you're using to
>> construct these documents?
>
>A postgres database.

The question has to then be asked... why do you want it in an editable
document format? The master copy of the information is in postgres, so
an editable document will rapidly become out of date. Why not just go
straight to PDF? We do that by extracting from the database (Oracle,
in our case) into a troff template. groff[1] converts that to PostScript,
and then ps2pdf gets us to the final PDF.

Essentially, I don't understand why you want a .swx/.doc format. I can't
see any valid uses for that for a database driven document.

Tet

[1] This has the added advantage[2] that it goes through a decent H&J
    engine[3]. Other PDF generators like FOP, Retep or Panda are years
    behind in typographical quality. Using the same principle, you
    could of course use TeX instead of groff.
[2] And the disadvantage that it won't make a dynamic PDF document. If
    you need hyperlinks, annotations or PDF forms, then you'll need to
    look at alternative solutions. But for most uses, it's probably one
    of the best options.
[3] Remember the Unix philosophy -- do one thing, and do it well. groff
    and TeX are pretty much unsurpassed when it comes to non-interactive
    typesetting.

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