[reportlab-users] Vector graphic embedding

[Andy Robinson]

On 13/11/2007, Jason Craig <jason at iwocreative.com> wrote:

> So, if I'm interpreting what I have found correctly, if I wish to embed

> an already created vector graphic (say, in PS or PDF form) into my PDF

> document, there is no easy way to do this beyond purchasing a £15,000

> software license and using PageCatcher?


I ought to clarify something on pricing.  £15,000 is the "unlimited
use list price" which we quote as part of substantial solutions for,
for example, a government department completing zillions of online
forms, or to enable a large financial firm to make statements for all
their customers.     In practice our pricing is highly flexible,
especially for user group members,  and you just need to email us and
tell us what you're doing and we are happy to work out an appropriate
(and probably much lower) price.  Someone doing 100 pages per month of
invoicing in a small business will (correctly) pay a lot less than
someone doing a million pages per month.   People on this user group
are also "low risk" because it's unlikely we'll end up having to teach
them to install Python ;-)

Our core business is creating solutions to generate documents. More
and more of that is hosted on our servers (see travel.reportlab.com)
with people sending us the data and our services turning it into a
nice document.  We have a unique edge in this which would disappear if
all the features were in the open source package, because a whole load
of Python web shops would be able to offer what we do worldwide
without facing the cost of maintaining the underlying framework.  This
was a trap I feel Zope Corp fell into.     As a result of this, the
ability to include graphics made by a professional designer or to
overlay an IRS tax form with a command or two (which PageCatcher
enables) have not been released as open source.  There are also many
RML tags whose implementation is not in the open source package.

You can solve the problem yourself by combining other tools out there
(pdftk and Dinu's SVG code, for example), but we'd ultimately destroy
our company if we put it all in one box and made it really easy for
others to do what we do..

Finally, Jason, since you're in a creative agency, it would be much
more fun to equip you with a trial copy of RML, let you show exciting
new solutions to your clients, and if they want to go live with some
of them then you and we can both profit....just drop me a line if you
want to pursue this.

I hope this is clear, and sounds fair to at least a few of you ;-)

Best Regards,


-- 
Andy Robinson
CEO/Chief Architect
ReportLab Europe Ltd.
165 The Broadway, Wimbledon, London SW19 1NE, UK
Tel +44-20-8544-8049