[reportlab-users] Reportlab Advocacy

[Barry, Christopher]

Hi Carl,
	You are my first post to this group! (you're thrilled, I can see) I'm =
basically only posting because you are the first ReportLab email I've =
gotten though (bad, bad boy, I know), and I cannot help you (yet) =
unfortunately.=20

	*But* I would like to take this opportunity to express my extreme =
admiration for the product - very clean, powerful and easy to use. I =
needed a good tool to allow me to output text to specific coordinates on =
a page programmatically, and this worked like a champ.  I duplicated my =
Iron Mountain Input Manifest for my backup offsite storage, and have my =
home-grown backup program create and fill it out automagically every =
week. Anyone who can use it pipe up, and I'll post it. I hate filling =
out forms!  I know I'm only scratching the surface of what this tool =
means. The effects of being able to dynamically create non-alterable =
documents is far reaching.  And of course, Python rocks too.  I'm =
looking forward to learning a lot on this list, and I promise - no more =
outbursts of any kind.=20

:^)

Thanks,
-Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Waldbieser [mailto:waldbie@attglobal.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 7:30 PM
To: reportlab-users@reportlab.com
Subject: [reportlab-users] Reportlab Advocacy


Is there any kind of Advocacy page/group/list for Reportlab?  I have =
found
working with this tool to be extremely useful and I suggest it to =
collegues,
but they often want to know how it compares to other contemporary report
writing tools, many of which I am not familiar with.

Aside from more general Python advocacy, can someone direct me to
information that differentiates Reportlab from products (especially on
Windows platforms) like Active Reports (Data Dynamics) and Crystal =
Reports
(Crystal Solutions?).  While I have had some some experience with the =
former
product, I must say that I felt that Reportlab was the superior tool.
Reportlab offered a more "free-form" aproach to layout, while Active =
Reports
definitely made me feel somewhat constrained as to what I was able to
accomplish.  Also, when working directly with clients to determine =
exactly
what they want, the fact that the development tools were not available =
on
the customer's machine tended to bog down my responsiveness in making =
minor
changes.

Does anyone else have similar experiences to relate?

Thanks,
Carl Waldbieser
waldbie@attglobal.net

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