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Create interactive PDF reports

I want to create reports that can be drilled by readers, but the reports must be PDF. I have two options:

  • Link from PDF to online report tool
  • Make the reports themselves interactive

I like # 2 ...

I believe I can do this with Adobe AIR (Flex, Flash + Adobe Reader 9 or higher).

There are tools that can programmatically create PDF documents (AIR ?, AlivePDF)

Adboe has frameworks perfect for reporting and charting (Flex)

And PDF documents can contain Flash content (Adobe Reader 9+)

My questions:

  • If I have an interactive Flash component in a PDF document and I go to print, what will it print? Will the current preview of it flash print?

  • If I want to expand, all data must be in PDF document (it must be offline). This is fine ... but how do I do it, I put the data into the PDF programmatically? Is this done with Flex and AlivePDF?

  • I saw an online sample of an interactive graph report in a PDF document, but now I can't find it. :( I'd love to find something again if you know about it.

I feel like I can have all the parts, but I don't understand how they all go together. Any ideas?

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3 answers


Answer to question 3: Currently AlivePDF does not allow embedding Flash content in the generated PDF file. The generated PDF files can include text, images, simple graphics, and some non-visual features such as bookmarks.



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PDF now has JavaScript as its native control language. With it you can insert "links" that go to other pages, etc.

In theory, you could call web services from PDF using JS and handle the responses, perhaps even dynamically populating page regions.

BUT



PDFs are great for providing a document that looks and prints the same everywhere. They are also great for filling out forms. They are NOT designed to be "drilled" on the client side. Can you check the project goals to see why they want dynamic PDF? If they want portability (ie, no web connection), perhaps you can provide what they want with an AIR application and an XML file.

Greetings

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we designed interactive content reports for PDF / flashpaper / etc using flex as the front-end, but handle the actual creation of the report on the server with coldfusion cfdocument / cfpdf (or Itext if we really need insane levels of placement / control, etc.) ). basically the user selects the content and the cf app on the backend fills it and sends a report.

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