[reportlab-users] ReportLab vs LaTex

[Andy Robinson]

Warvin Barker wrote:

> Hi Time!

> 

> I want to thank you for taking the time to think about this and write

> such an extensive reply.  Your comments will definitely assist us in

> making a decision.


Hi Warren,

I'm the founder of ReportLab.  I'm sure you know what "the average LaTex 
document" looks like.  In addition to what Tim says, all of which I 
agree with, we've got some rather new visual examples of "what ReportLab 
is good at" here - try the Hilton or Hidden Croatia eBrochures here,
which are very different to your average LaTeX document....

     http://travel.reportlab.com/

You could also look at our samples of past projects (3-4 Mb):

    http://www.reportlab.com/docs/sampler.pdf

The first fundamental issue is what kinds of ddocuments you produce.
If it's letters or articles, LaTeX may be very good.  But LaTex might 
not have helped much on the above projects, where we often had to get 
details exactly right to someone else's specifications, to implement a 
lot of rules about the content selection and order, and needed to reuse 
a lot of predesigned PDF pages.

You may also want to consider outputting Report Markup Language rather 
than climbing the curve of learning PDFgen and Platypus.  RML has the 
same engine as the open source code but makes document development
more like web development, and a lot less work; it will pay off quickly 
if your business involves making a lot of different automated documents 
for different projects.  Email me directly with some info about your 
business if you'd like to know about this and I'll quote a price 
appropriate to the level of use.

In both cases, indices and tables of contents are possible but you have 
to build them up yourself in our framework - there is no easy 3-liner to 
give you a nice table of contents, sadly.


> 

> Have a VERY happy holiday season and I hope that 2007 is excellent

> for you and yours!

> 

> Sincerely,

Same to you!

Andy Robinson