PDFs from D3 including images and barcodes

I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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Hy Brian...

i have done that using Java and PHP as external tools to generate the pdfs files

usually i draw the report in Jasper tools.. and if the template or i use php or java to pass the data to the report... 

and i have started a project to D3 to direct generate PDF files without using any external tools.. only basic program.. 

but i need help to finishig 

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Alberto Leal
System Analyst
Millano Distribuidora de Auto Pecas Ltda
Varzea Grande MT BR
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I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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I have done it using Adobe's ColdFusion _ acting as middleware with LiveCycle designer _ something of a big deal.

I saw recently that Progress' KendoUI (JavaScript) can do pdfs.

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Bill Brutzman
IT Manager
Hk Metalcraft Manufacturing Corporation
Lodi NJ US
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I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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Hello Brian!

We offer RDM Forms that has a web based drag and drop design element to it also to allow for form design on the fly. 

it will allow for dynamic images and barcodes (along with lots of other things). We would be happy to demo it for them!

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Brandon Robinson
Head Geek
RDM Infinity
Carson City NV US
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I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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Brian,

In the past, we have handled this by creating a PDF with fillable fields.  Then each time a new PDF is required we create an FDF file and merge that with the PDF.  I would like to think that we found a command-line tool to do this but I have a suspicion that we wrote a small C# console app to drive the filling of the data.  I believe today that you could do this in Javascript and use V8 to execute it.

Dick

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Dick Thiot
President
Maverick Systems
McKinney TX US
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I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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Brian,

Here are some ideas:

1. We generate PCL in D3 and have our own Windows program that converts this to PDF.  I think it may be too complicated solution for this but we can talk about it if you wish.
2.  Create a PDF form and only update fields. We have done it with a PDF library in VB.Net.
3. Use MS Word. You can either create a text file from D3 and use mail merge tools or use the Interop functionality to control MS Office (C#.Net/VB.Net).
4. I believe there are some PDF Python libraries that you can use for it.

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Chris Wolcz
Senior Software Developer
Execontrol Global Solutions
Clifton Park NY US
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I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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We have been using PCL2PDF tool for many years.... generate a file with the print and with a command lines convert it to PDF

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Frank Diaz
Consultant
Compucot Inc
Doral FL US
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We have been using PCL2PDF tool for many years.... generate a file with the print and with a command lines convert it to PDF

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Frank Diaz
Consultant
Compucot Inc
Doral FL US
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Yep, that's what I was using a long time ago. PCL2PDF, part of PCLTOOLS from PAGETECH. I think Bob Pooley retired and Page Tech is now run by someone else. Last year I tried to migrate it to Windows 2019 without success. Tried their tech support group but they were less that optimally responsive ( yes, the end user was/is paying his annual support contract ), so we gave up and went a different direction. We were only using it because it could use an overlay to include a logo in the PDF, so I convinced the end user that we could use a font that looked a lot like his logo, implemented that in the PCL and went with the WinPCLtoPDF free solution.

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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Hey Brian,

I don't have first-hand experience, but some of our customers have used mvPDF from Brian Leach Consulting.

Check out:
https://www.mvdeveloper.com/pages/mvpdf.htm
-and looks like they've added support for QR Codes and 2D barcodes, so hopefully ticks all the boxes.

Hope that helps.
Cheers,

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Mike Raffaele
MultiValue Support/Technical Consultant
Meier Business Systems PTY LTD
Carnegie VIC AU
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I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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We created a .NET windows program with www.dynamicpdf.com products to create barcode price tags and invoices  with logo (image). In D3 we create a text file that the .NET windows program picks up and converts into a PDF (invoice/PO/report)  and either save to a directory or emails to the user. 

If you are looking for barcodes for shipping labels then you can print ZPL code directly from D3 and it will create barcode/images (using Zebra printers). 
We found inspiration here: Labelary Online ZPL Viewer

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Laust Andersen
President
Business Accounting Software Canada
Calgary AB CA
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I've got a friend who's looking to generate PDFs from D3 that include an image ( a company logo for an invoice ) and a barcode. Barcodes can be accomplished by using PCL which is understood by most if not all PDF printers/converters, but the image is a little trickier. I've done it before using PCL Tools but that was a long time ago. I understand Print Wizard  can do this, but I have no experience with Print Wizard. Anybody out there got any suggestions?

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Brian S. Cram
Principal Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
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I'm partial to using wkhtmltopdf, it's a linux and windows utility that works by transforming html pages to PDFs, similar to how puppeteer works but without the dependency on node. I really believe that writing html, css and javascript is the best way generate PDFs! Wkhtmltopdf can even run vue2 so its relatively sophisticated. The great thing is you can view the PDF as a web page and it'll match what will get generated reasonably well. Feel free to reach out and I can give you a demo of our workflow as it is quite simple.

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Nivethan Thiyagarajah
Programmer
Asynchron Systems Inc
Toronto ON CA
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I'm partial to using wkhtmltopdf, it's a linux and windows utility that works by transforming html pages to PDFs, similar to how puppeteer works but without the dependency on node. I really believe that writing html, css and javascript is the best way generate PDFs! Wkhtmltopdf can even run vue2 so its relatively sophisticated. The great thing is you can view the PDF as a web page and it'll match what will get generated reasonably well. Feel free to reach out and I can give you a demo of our workflow as it is quite simple.

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Nivethan Thiyagarajah
Programmer
Asynchron Systems Inc
Toronto ON CA
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+1 to wkhtmltopdf (or htmldoc) . We've been using it for 12/13 years or so to generate pdf documents for emailing/printing. Easy to integrate company logos, barcodes etc.
Likewise happy to share details.

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Tom Power
Owner
Power Business Systems
Benoni ZA
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