#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use PDF::Create;

my $font;
my $height=792;
my $width=612;
my $left=20;
my $topmargin=20;
my $pointsize=8;
my $spacing=$pointsize+3;

sub addtext {
    my($page, $fh)=@_;
    my $l=0;
    my $hpos=$height-$topmargin;

    while(<$fh>) {
        $page->stringl($font, $pointsize, $left, $hpos-=$spacing, $_);
        last if ++$l > 66;
    }
    
}
sub boxpage {
    my($page)=@_;

    $page->line($left, $topmargin,
            $left, $height-$topmargin,
            );
    $page->line( $left, $height-$topmargin,
             $width-$left, $height-$topmargin);
    $page->line( $width-$left, $height-$topmargin,
            $width-$left, $topmargin);
    $page->line( $width-$left, $topmargin,
             $left, $topmargin);

    $page->line($left+42, $topmargin,
            $left+42, $height-$topmargin);

    $page->line($left+81, $topmargin,
            $left+81, $height-$topmargin);

    $page->line($left+145, $topmargin,
            $left+145, $height-$topmargin);

    $page->line($left+183, $topmargin,
            $left+183, $height-$topmargin);
}

my $pdf=new PDF::Create('filename' => 'outfile.pdf',
            'Version'  => '1.2',
            'Author'   => 'Clinton Pierce',
            'Title'    => 'Test Report',);
my $root=$pdf->new_page('MediaBox' => [ 0, 0, 612, 792 ]);
$font=$pdf->font('Subtype' => 'Type1',
            'Encoding' => 'WinAnsiEncoding',
            'BaseFont' => 'Courier');


open(FH, $0) || die;

while(not eof(FH)) {
    my $page=$root->new_page();
    boxpage($page);
    addtext($page, \*FH);
}

$pdf->close;
[download]

And PDF::Create hasn't been updated in a long, long time and I got a bounce from the e-mail address of the maintainer. But I got enough out of it for my needs...

For anybody coming across this thread much much later, please note PDF::Create is being updated again with the most recent version 1.02 being released on 10 Jul 2008.

CPAN Search - PDF::Create

I have no idea how mature/usable this module is, but at thevery least it looks like a good place to start. Frankly, the README looks a lil confusing, but then again I know little about the internals of PDFs. Maybe a Postscript generator might be better, as far as I know the two formats are interchangeable through external converters (ps2pdf), and there seem to be a fair amount of decent Postscript modules out there.

Trinary

Although the original post is a few years old, I feel compelled to respond to it. Recently I had to develop a few dynamic PDFs from data in a database. After looking at the avaliable options (including writing out the pdf by hand - yuck), I found PDF::API2 to be the most useful.

The biggest drawback I found to PDF::API2 was that the perldoc left much to be desired. Although it very much has the capabilities to go beyond "simple text" figuring out how to draw curves or use barcodes from the perldoc was difficult at best. If you use PDF::API2 I recommend using http://pdfapi2.sourceforge.net/twiki/ for documentation.

Other than the documentation drawback, expect to spend about a half a day learning the API. Once you get the hang of it, its pretty easy and well done.

The advantage of such an approach is, that you can have quite high-level control (ie, just write your text). However, learning about all the handy packages can take quite a while. A sample perl script might be something like this:

#get the data first
$a = <DATA>;
chomp $a;
$b = <DATA>;
chomp $b;
open TEX, ">file.tex" or die "Could not open file.tex";
print TEX <<'_END';
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\title{TeX-report}
\author{Me}
\maketitle
\section{Some data}
_END
print TEX "I have $a and $b. That's all for now.\n";
print TEX <<'_END';
\section{Some table}
\begin{table}
  \caption{A table}
  \begin[|l|c|c|]{tabular}
    \hline
_END
while(<DATA>){
  chomp;
  print TEX join('&', split ).'\\ \hline'."\n";
}
print TEX <<'_END';
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}
_END
system("latex file.tex");
system("latex file.tex");
system("dvipdf file") if -e "file.dvi";
__DATA__
129873
12315
1 8 2
1 3 100
8 3 4
[download]

Here I'm also using the dvipdf package, (freshmeat.net), but you could use 'dvips file -o' and 'ps2pdf file.ps' as well. Perl code is checked. I'm using TeX daily, so you always can /msg me with further questions.

Hope this helps,

Jeroen
"We are not alone"(FZ)

Another option might be to generate XSL:FO, which can be converted into PDF by e.g. FOP (c/o http://xml.apache.org/); this is an XML dialect, so you can actually just output XML and use an XSL:Transform stylesheet to convert the same XML into HTML, WML, or XSL:FO (for conversion to PDF)... Big points for Laziness :-)