Hi,
I'm sorry if this is a common question, but a few quick searches didn't turn anything up - feel free to just link me to another topic!
To summarise the requirements of the project I'm working on:
We're building a web-based application with 2 distinct roles; admins and users. The admins create a template of a letter, with basic content and images, and design a layout - think dragging paragaphs / images onto the page, in blocks that can be positioned anywhere. The letters can be multiple pages, printed single or double-sided.
A user then selects a pre-defined letter template, with basic content and customises it for a particular instance, prints it out and posts it (or attaches the PDF to an email).
I've found plenty of PDF generators that will do almost everything we need, the key problem that we're struggling to solve is that, because the user can edit the content - and this could be changing odd words or adding whole paragraphs - it may overflow the end of the page.
As a realistic example, imagine a letter with a header and footer and a right-hand column containing some kind of fixed content, the main body contains the actual letter content and is the only part that can overflow the page. The back of the page is defined (by the admin) to have a list of terms and conditions which is fixed, and fills the back of the page. The kind of letter you receive daily from insurance companies, energy companies, etc.
Minimally, we want to be able to give the admin the option for the overflowing text to flow onto the back of page 1, thus pushing the terms and conditions to the front of page 2, OR to leave the back of page 1 in tact, and flow over onto the front of a second page.
Obviously, there are all kinds of extra features we would like to offer, if we can, such as multiple overflowing areas (so, perhaps the main body can overflow and so can the right-hand column), or customising the layout of the overflow page - so the first page contains the header, footer and right-hand column, but if it overflows, it goes onto a page containing just the footer, or a totally different layout altogether. But that's all for the future.
So - to get to an actual question... It strikes me that the key for all of that is to somehow be able to define a block that can be positioned anywhere in the document as an overflow from a different block, and it only gets populated if that first block overflows. Is anything like that possible with PrinceXML? Or is there any alternative approach that you can suggest.
Many thanks,
Dave Payne.
I'm sorry if this is a common question, but a few quick searches didn't turn anything up - feel free to just link me to another topic!
To summarise the requirements of the project I'm working on:
We're building a web-based application with 2 distinct roles; admins and users. The admins create a template of a letter, with basic content and images, and design a layout - think dragging paragaphs / images onto the page, in blocks that can be positioned anywhere. The letters can be multiple pages, printed single or double-sided.
A user then selects a pre-defined letter template, with basic content and customises it for a particular instance, prints it out and posts it (or attaches the PDF to an email).
I've found plenty of PDF generators that will do almost everything we need, the key problem that we're struggling to solve is that, because the user can edit the content - and this could be changing odd words or adding whole paragraphs - it may overflow the end of the page.
As a realistic example, imagine a letter with a header and footer and a right-hand column containing some kind of fixed content, the main body contains the actual letter content and is the only part that can overflow the page. The back of the page is defined (by the admin) to have a list of terms and conditions which is fixed, and fills the back of the page. The kind of letter you receive daily from insurance companies, energy companies, etc.
Minimally, we want to be able to give the admin the option for the overflowing text to flow onto the back of page 1, thus pushing the terms and conditions to the front of page 2, OR to leave the back of page 1 in tact, and flow over onto the front of a second page.
Obviously, there are all kinds of extra features we would like to offer, if we can, such as multiple overflowing areas (so, perhaps the main body can overflow and so can the right-hand column), or customising the layout of the overflow page - so the first page contains the header, footer and right-hand column, but if it overflows, it goes onto a page containing just the footer, or a totally different layout altogether. But that's all for the future.
So - to get to an actual question... It strikes me that the key for all of that is to somehow be able to define a block that can be positioned anywhere in the document as an overflow from a different block, and it only gets populated if that first block overflows. Is anything like that possible with PrinceXML? Or is there any alternative approach that you can suggest.
Many thanks,
Dave Payne.
