Our project scope included:
- creating a 4-tier web site that incorporates XML Web Services
- generating PDF reports on the fly
- generating dynamic reports to the client's browser
We went with Microsoft .NET for the RAD development and decided to format reports
using XSL to separate the design layer from the data layer. We wanted a product
that would use XSL and a few server-side lines of code to generate dynamically PDF
reports. By accident, we have found TallPDF. Without reading any reviews (since
there were none at the time), we decided to take our chance since we did not know
of any other company that uses .NET managed code to create PDF files/reports. We
downloaded TallPDF's trial version and decided to give it a try. Our designer created
a few XSL stylesheets (you can also create
PDF files all from server-side without writing XSL) based on TallPDF's documentation
(which is excellent by the way and works!). We then wrote 2 server-side lines of
code to transform the XML into PDF (line 1) and then to wrote to the browser. Well,
it worked. We created beautiful reports within 4 hours. But we didn't stop then.
We need to create a barcode on the report and there were no dumentation on how to
do that. So we asked TallPDF how to do this. Surprisingly, their respone was within
an hour. We knew we liked the product right then just because their support was
incredibly fast. We asked them how to incorporate a true type font (for the barcode)
and they said they'll actually create functionality for us. Wow! We only had a week
before the rollout and got a bit nervous, but TallPDF came through and our application
works without a glitch.
I would recommend TallPDF to anyone who needs to create PDF reports or documents
dynamically. Superb and fast support and documentation. Keep up the good work guys.