Every experience I've had with PDFs goes something like this:
- The web designer lays out the webpage. It has a bunch of header/sidebar stuff and then there's the tabular report in the content div.
- The client likes it, but wants to have something they can print out.
- Enter PDF::Template.
- Through a series of iterations, a header page, headers and footers, and various layout options appear, as if by magic.
- Eventually, the client gets bored of tweaking and asks you to promote to production.
I've talked with people who've used PDF::Template to generate actual PDFs, but I don't know what process(es) they used, if any.
You are right - the lack of use cases is contributing to the lack of direction. Maybe what I'm asking for here is "How do you want to use something that generates PDFs from a layout + parameters?" ...
My criteria for good software:
- Does it work?
- Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?