[CLUE-Tech] HTML forms and printing

[Kevin Cullis]

Keith,

The situation with forms is "B" below with the potential of "C".  The
organization wants to produce a consistent document which allows others
to type into the fields with their text and the fields are limited, such
as two characters for the state as well as hundreds of characters for
larger blocks of text with the total document limited to 30 pages. Once
all of this is filled in with text, the output should look the same for
all applications that are submitted.

For instance, filling out job applications. My handwriting looks like a
Chinese road map and it's big, but if I type it in, I can be much more
clear and consise as well as fitting more in the space allowed.

Now, think of the above example for a larger document and you have what
I'm looking for and, yes, I WANT to do it in HTML!!

As far as the results are concerned, we'd probably want both a print out
AND the text in the HTML form, but we've not made any decisions on this.

Keith Hellman wrote:
> > * If some the target form users won't have WWW access, they can still
> > print this nice simple form out with their printer, fill it in by hand,
> > and snail mail it to you.
> > * The only thing your missing (vs the current Word scenario) is the
> > ability for users to edit the Word document and send it back to you
> > electronically - but I would argue that this is equivilent to them
> > completing the HTML form in their browser and having the result sent
> > back
> > to you via POST/EMAIL.

Ultimately what we'd want to do.

> >
> > BUT WAIT! THERES MORE!

I was waiting for the "you get all of this for only $19.99" price
comment ;-)

> > * If you do want to provide a pretty print version, then do it with
> > cascading style sheets!  Keep the logic (in the plain vanilla HTML file)
> > the same, simply reference a style sheet from it.
> > * Design the CSS sheet appropriately, then open the form in a recent
> > version of Netscape (or any descent CSS aware browser), print the form
> > to
> > a postscript file, then run ps2pdf and create a PDF file.  PDFs (IMHO)
> > are
> > the ONLY way to gaurantee consistant printouts across client apps, OSs,
> > and printers.

Most of the users won't be techies, so I doubt they will know how to do
PS printing, although it could happen, the worst case scenario is no. 
But, the consistency of the print out is probably what is wanted.

> >
> > HTH - and Happy Hacking.
> >

You BET this helped!!! Thanks a bunch!! I'll keep you informed as to how
it turns out in the near future.

Kevin