I will be attending the social event this evening. Feel free to approach me to talk more about using LiveDocx with the Zend Framework and generally in PHP.

You can download the slides to the presentation. You can also contact me, if you have any further questions.

Thank you for attention during the lightening talk.

Template-Based DOCX, DOC & PDF Generation with the Zend Framework

Using current PDF generation libraries in PHP, it is time consuming to get the formatting of a document exactly right. You need to choose between either the HTML-to-PDF approach, or the programmatic approach, in which you define the x and y co-ordinates of each and every element on a page.

In this lightening talk, I would like to present an alternative approach to generating not only PDF files with PHP but, amongst others, also DOCX and DOC, and even TIFF and BMP. It utilizes templates, created in a word processing package, for example Microsoft Word, and the Zend Framework.

The approach supports PHP on Linux, Windows and Mac OS.

The unconference will take place at the Ramada Manchester Piccadilly in Manchester, UK.

A voting process will commence after talk submissions have closed on September 11, 2011, and will remain open until September 28, 2011. Only delegates of PHPNW11 are eligible to vote.

If you are interested in learning about an alternative approach to creating professional, print-ready documents with PHP, vote for me!

See you all in Manchester next month.

October 01, 2011: My proposal got accepted and I will be offering the session at PHPNW11 Unconference. Joind.in Quicklink: http://joind.in/3812.

October 02, 2011: The Ramada Manchester Piccadilly got rebranded Mercure Manchester Piccadilly.

Template-Based DOCX, DOC & PDF Generation with Zend Framework.

Using the current PHP PDF libraries, it is time consuming to get the formatting of a document exactly right. In this session, I would like to present a new approach to generating not only PDF files with PHP but, amongst others, also DOCX and DOC. It utilizes templates, created in a word processing package, and Zend Framework. The approach supports PHP on Linux, Windows and Mac.

The unconference, which takes place at the Pitcher & Piano, is the first European version of the well established PHP Unconference Hamburg.

Additionally, I will be taking LiveDocx to Leeds PHP on February 21, 2011 and would be delighted to show you how it works, if you cannot make it to the Manchester event.

I look forward to seeing you all in the UK next month.

I will be attending the social event this evening. Feel free to approach me and talk more about using LiveDocx in PHP.

You can download the slides to the presentation. You can also contact me, if you have any further questions.

Please note that the slides contain more content than I was able to address in the session.

For example, there is an enlightening case study that illustrates how a multinational company is using LiveDocx to generate all business correspondences: quotations, invoices, price lists etc. Similarly, if you attended PHP Unconference Hamburg this year, you will be interested in the second case study: How the badges and vote posters were created using LiveDocx.

The event takes place between November 20, 2010 and November 21, 2010 on T-Online-Allee 1, 64295 Darmstadt, Germany. The organizers expect 200 delegates and plenty of discussion about Internet and related topics over the weekend.

I can hold my session in either English or German, just as the audience prefers. Below is a synopsis (German version follows):

Template-based generation of DOCX, DOC and PDF with Zend Framework

Up to now, there are two basic approaches to generating PDF documents with PHP. Either you use the HTML-to-PDF conversion approach, or you programmatically generate a PDF from scratch. Using the former approch, you are severely limited by the formatting capabilities of HTML and the latter approach is extremely time consuming, and to be frank, annoying.

In my session, I will present a new third approach: It is based upon a template, created in a WYSIWYG application, such as Microsoft® Word oder Open Office. The template is then populated with data using PHP. The resulting document can be saved not only as a PDF file, but also as DOCX, DOC and RTF.

The project uses SOAP and is thus not limited to PHP, but can be used in all programming languages and operating systems that supported SOAP.

German version:

Vorlagenbasiertes Erstellen von DOCX, DOC u. PDF mit dem Zend Framework

Wer bisher PDFs dynamsich erstellen wollte, konnte dies in der Regel über eine HTML-zu-PDF-Konvertierung oder direkter über einen rein programmiertechnischen Ansatz erledigen. Mit der einen Variante muss man dabei jedoch gewisse Einbußen hinnehmen, mit der anderen viel Aufwand in Kauf nehmen.

Meine Session stellt einen neuen, dritten Ansatz vor. Er basiert auf Templates, die in einer WYSIWYG-Anwendung, wie z.B. Microsoft® Word oder Open Office erstellt und dann mittels PHP mit Daten gefüllt werden. Das resultierende Dokument kann nicht nur als PDF, sondern zusätzlich auch als DOCX, DOC und RTF gespeichert werden.

Das Ganze basiert auf SOAP und kann deswegen nicht nur in PHP benuzt werden, sondern in allen Programmiersprachen und Betriebsystemen, die SOAP unterstützen.

If you are interested in hearing this session, please show you support by clicking on the rating stars next to the session title in the barcamp’s session radar.

Thank you! And see you in Darmstadt.

LiveDocx will be deployed by the unconference in their contribution and interests web application. Using this application, unconference participants can register a session that they would like to host, or register an interest in a specific topic. Another unconference participant can then register a session, based upon the original person’s interest.

The LiveDocx powered contribution and interests web application allows the collection of this data and generates the so called vote posters. To decide upon which sessions may actually be hosted, there is a voting process on each morning of the unconference. In this process, participants stick little stickers onto the vote posters. The session advertised on vote posters with the most stickers may then be hosted.

This democratic method of deciding upon which sessions may be hosted is the quintessence of an unconference and the defining difference from a traditional conference: The participants of an unconference decide, on the day, which sessions they would like to have hosted.

LiveDocx is also being used to generate the badges for the unconference. This is a typical mail-merge application and ideally suited to LiveDocx: The badge template, created by a graphic designer, is populated with data in PHP. The data that is inserted into the template (name, organization, blog, WiFi credentials etc.) originates from the database of unconference participants, merged with a database of WiFi credentials.

In each of the above two applications, LiveDocx is used to generate the final documents. One document per PDF file. Additionally, there is a script to concentrate each set of PDF files together, so that the unconference organizers simply need to send two PDF files to the printers to get a hard copy of all the vote posters and badges.

LiveDocx is proud to support PHP Unconference Europe with professional document generation services.

The last three events were excellent opportunities to hear leading speakers in the web development field and of course to participate in the sessions themselves.

The event’s web site and blog are at:
http://www.php-unconference.de

And its Twitter feed here:
http://twitter.com/phpunconference

Tickets for the event cost only EUR 30.00. This includes entry to both conference days, food and drinks. In comparison to other PHP conferences, it is an absolute bargain and the quality of the presentations is just as high. Tickets are selling out really quickly, so register today at:
http://de.amiando.com/phpunconference.html

(Students of the Hamburg University get in free! But hurry, there are limited free tickets. See this post.)

You can download the slides [PDF] and live coding samples [TAR.GZ] referenced in the session. Note that the live coding samples require the other files included in the phpLiveDocx distribution file.

Template-Based DOCX, DOC & PDF Generation with Zend Framework.

New and highly efficient approach to generating word processing documents with Zend Framework.

Using the current PHP PDF libraries, it is time consuming to get the formatting of a document exactly right. Furthermore, whenever you want to change the layout, you have to start over repositioning all the text and graphics. In this session, we present a new approach to generating not only PDF files with PHP but, amongst others, also DOCX and DOC. It utilizes templates, created in a word processing package, and Zend Framework. The approach supports PHP on Linux, Windows and Mac.

Attendance and interest in the topic of SOAP based document generation services was very strong.

A key factor to the success of an unconference is that the attendees get involved. The content of the sessions and the decision on which sessions are actually held, lie in the hands of the attendees.

As of yesterday, you can submit your interests and contributions. These submissions form the basis of the session voting process on Saturday and Sunday morning. A session can be a lecture, discussion or workshop with a maximum length of 45 minutes.

Learn more and submit at:
http://contrib.php-unconference.de/en/

If you look carefully at the list of submissions, you may find one that deals with word processing document generation with PHP. :-)

The last two events were excellent opportunities to hear leading speakers in the web development field and of course to participate in the sessions themselves.

This year, the organization team is making considerable effort to publish all information about the unconference in English, with the goal of attracting an even more international audience.

The event’s blog is at:
http://www.php-unconference.de

And its Twitter feed here:
http://twitter.com/phpunconference

Tickets for the event cost only EUR 25.00. This includes entry to both conference days, food and drinks. In comparison to other PHP conferences, it is an absolute bargain and the quality of the presentations is just as high. Tickets are selling out very quickly, so register today at:
http://de.amiando.com/phpunconference.html

(Students of the Hamburg University get in free! See this post.)

After successful registration, you can download the entry ticket. Mine is below. See you there!