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Im working on adding an estimating feature to my business productivity software and was looking for some general ideas. I currently hand type the estimates into a template I made in an Open Office Document.

I would like the template to be filled in on submission of the form and then have the template converted to PDF. How could I best achieve this? The program is written in C# using Access. Basically, I'm looking for the most efficient way to do this. If I have to scrap my Open Office template for something else that is fine.

I will also need to be able to acess the fields and repopulate a form to modify the estimate if necessary.

Thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction!

snollygoster
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  • There's a lot of different sections to your question. If I understand you, you want to pre-fill an OpenOffice document with data from an Access DB. From there, the PDF conversion should already be handled by OO, shouldn't it ? Or do you want to automate that as well ? – Luc Morin Jan 02 '14 at 18:22
  • I'd prefer to automate that so I wouldn't need to manually update the DB with the file. – snollygoster Jan 02 '14 at 18:25
  • What do you mean "update the DB with the file" ? I think you need to sit down and write down your requirements in a clear and concise way. – Luc Morin Jan 02 '14 at 22:17
  • Sorry, I meant to say update the DB record with the pdf file name, but was a bit distracted at the moment. I can see why you would be confused. This way it could be accessed if I wished to manipulate the file. I know my requirements, I'm just looking for someone with experience that could save me a lot of time by pointing me down the most efficient and easiest route. – snollygoster Jan 03 '14 at 20:01
  • Good ! Knowing your requirements is the first step ;-) The next important one is to be able to communicate them to your fellow programmers in a way that will allow them to help you. So, you read the form fields' default values from the DB, fill out the form with new values, then save the file as PDF and send the new filename back to the DB. Do you also need to persist the updated fields to the DB as well ? – Luc Morin Jan 03 '14 at 20:23
  • I'm assuming by persistence you mean do I need to update the DB if the PDF is updated manually. That would be no. The update feature populates a form with the current DB values of the selected estimate and would generate a new PDF with the modifications. The new PDF would overwrite the old in the FileName DB field. My main problem right now is figuring out how to automatically convert the file to a PDF. Thanks for bearing with me! :) – snollygoster Jan 03 '14 at 21:08
  • OpenOffice has a .NET API that you can use to automate such things. It does have an Export to PDF function, so start there. A quick google search should point you in the right direction. – Luc Morin Jan 03 '14 at 21:44

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