 | martin oliver 8/29/2013 1:40:48 PM I guess you can print to a PDF printer then print the document, But this is an extra step
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 | Megan Pillsbury 8/29/2013 5:33:58 PM It's actually several extra steps - download, save, open (Word, which does not open quickly), print to pdf, close, delete. Not a big deal if you are doing once per week, but when you are doing several times per day, it can add up.
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 | basenine 8/29/2013 7:21:57 PM From previous discussions with TD, I think the main reasons this hasn't been implemented are:
Cost - there are add-on applications that will do this as far as I'm aware and I've discussed them with TD in the past but they're pricey…That'll push the monthly $ rate up.
and
Setup - MS Word is easy to setup and layout and is widely used by most people where-as Crystal Reports, for example, is harder to use and not that common due to initial purchase price. Other report engines fall into this category too and they all come with the requirement to learn new software (not that that's a biggy). And they aren't necessarily all OSX/Windows/Linux native.
I agree with Meagan though - it can be a cumbersome task…but….
With MS Word, you can password protect the whole form so when the user opens it, data and wording can't be altered. There is a free version of MS word called Word Viewer as well - but not for OSX users. With the new email document function too, Docs are easy to send with one click (once they're setup correctly).
The main trouble with .docx is that whilst it's built on open standards, MS decided to make it incompatible (Slightly and annoyingly) with all the other open xml doc readers. For example, you can create a Word .docx and open it on an iPhone/iPad, but the format/layout will most likely alter. It will alter when opening in Open Office, Google Docs and LibreOffice too.
Whilst I say MS Word is easy to setup, it can still take hours to format correctly and I must say I've learned more about Word in the past 12 months that I had previously in the past 10 years!
TD runs on MS SQL Server 2008 R2 (last I was told - but they may have updated to 2012 or 2014) and there is a report builder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SQL_Server#Reporting_Services)
that can be used that can generate .pdf's… Again - it only works on Windows platform…
My last discussion with TD was over a year ago and who know's - TD often surprises with a nice new feature that not only works well, but is implemented well and is easy to use/learn.
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| martin oliver 11/8/2013 12:36:37 PM pdf usage is probably bigger than docx for web & mail. Is this still "not planned"
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 | Kirill Bondar 11/9/2013 3:00:19 AM PDF is indeed more wide-spread format, and we understand the value of this feature, but...
Generation of PDF is like printing process - you should specify not only the text content but calculate text dimensions and position on the page. In simple case it's not hard, but if our goal is to emulate Word the process becomes overcomplicated - we have to emulate entire Word's layout engine. That's why Word-to-PDF components are quite expensive and that's why we don't think they can produce PDFs one-to-one identical to your Word file. Even Word's own PDF conversion produces artifacts sometimes.
So far we don't have plans to start with implementation but things may change in the future.
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| martin oliver 11/11/2013 3:28:07 AM @Kirill Thanks for the explanation
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 | Greg Bhatia 3/3/2014 11:31:14 AM It will be great if there was a feature to seamlessly convert Word Documents into PDF prior to Emailing them. This will be specially useful when sending invoices.
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 | Slava Shinderov 3/3/2014 11:35:57 AM Merged with:
728 - Convert Word Documents to PDF
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 | Rafael Muñiz 11/11/2014 6:06:21 AM Hi,
It would be great, if we can generate directly a PDF, when printing a document, instead of having to open Word, first.
Hope you make this possible.
Thanks
Rafael
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| Kirill Bondar 11/11/2014 6:08:29 AM Merged with:
793 - PDF
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 | rishi uttam 11/12/2014 10:31:52 PM There may be a few open source commercial free pdf generators that run on .net platform : http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/531083/Generating-Dynamic-PDF-DocumentMost others are paid for commercial server use, i do hope TD does find a good, cheap or free solution so we can all benifit in all plans, if not it would be a nice addon for all plans too. One method could be to continue to use the docx template, but run a background process that would deliver the generated pdf from the docx template, sure there may still be inconsistencies, but we can go back and fix that in the docx. this way we could download the pdf version as well as the docx. (maybe LAB this?) |
| rishi uttam 11/12/2014 10:46:40 PM |
 | Lynne Manzo 1/24/2015 11:17:30 PM Printing to PDF would be useful, but only in addition to WORD, definitely not instead of.
We require to produce reports that we can then edit in Word.
We have just converted our whole database from Filemaker to TeamDesk mainly so we can export (including images) to Word documents.
With Filemaker (as well as many other alternatives that we tried), we could easily export records as as PDF, including images, but getting them into word required CSV export and then much playing with mail merge. Getting images in was a nightmare because Filemaker can't export "container fields". Please ensure that exporting to Word remains - it is the BEST feature of TeamDesk for us, and the one which differentiates TeamDesk from its competitors.
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| rishi uttam 4/1/2015 10:02:51 PM Hi all
would just like to comment on this topic.. The very nature of a online database application is that it is platform independent, all you need is a browser and that's it. Be it a PC/MAC/ChromeBook/ThinClient/Linux machine, not all of these systems will have word installed or even a compatible word application.
Many of our users are moving away from MSOFFICE, and shifting to other Opensource applications that can still open DOC files but often have inconsistencies in their text layout. Google Docs for example opens word files, but does not display them perfectly in native form, Pages from Apple can do the same thing, but still does not display docs perfectly. PDF remains a popular format to use, as well as CSV, HTML, or in some cases XML.
I agree with keeping word as a export option, but i think its time to change the template design and move it away from word, or at the very least have other one click export options for non word users.
RISHI
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| basenine 4/1/2015 11:14:40 PM 100% agree with @rishi.
The trouble with .docx is that whilst it's based on open xml (like gdocs and pages), Microsoft alters the formatting slightly and is therefore not really compatible to open some docs on iPhone/tablet device...or in pages.
Having an easy to use template/doc generator that can create pdf's in TD would be great
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| Kirill Bondar 5/26/2015 4:48:40 AM Finally done. Enjoy!
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| rishi uttam 5/26/2015 4:49:55 AM Whaaaaat! Woah. Awesome. Going to test this out soon.
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 | Alexander Sepe 5/26/2015 4:50:58 AM Great!
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 | Gii Systems 5/26/2015 4:52:08 AM Thanks Kirill.
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| basenine 5/26/2015 5:48:38 AM Gosh I love the way you guys execute things....1 radio button...the rest is done!
Nice work 😃
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 | werner lategan 5/26/2015 5:52:55 AM Thank you!
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| martin oliver 5/26/2015 8:59:08 AM Good Stuff
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 | calvin peters 5/26/2015 8:59:12 AM this is awesome!!!!
THANK YOU!!!
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| Rafael Muñiz 5/26/2015 7:14:25 PM Great Kirill, thanks!
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| basenine 5/27/2015 2:10:54 AM I noticed that one of my documents, which uses sans-serif font Century Gothic, breaks with format and uses a different font - Times New Roman.
Can this be looked into please.
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 | Marc Andre Lacas 5/29/2015 10:59:57 AM Three thumbs up!
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| martin oliver 5/31/2015 12:11:09 AM pdf does not support 1d barcode fonts which we use extensively. Any chance of this, we use a free 3 of 9 extended.
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| Slava Shinderov 5/31/2015 2:31:29 PM @All we've installed additional fonts to help proper PDF generation. Please review.
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 | Rick Cogley 6/1/2015 8:34:04 PM @slava, @kirill, thanks fellas, this is great. The Japanese fonts work like a charm!
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