Current process conception is:
- DATA GENERATION: Data is generated via a standard process; meaning that though the values change, the location of the data is stored in the same location (cell A1's value will change, but the "label/mapping" of that data is static, or not changing.)
- DATA STORED: Data written to a single file location in delimited form (CSV,Tab, etc.) or to a MySQL database; meaning data is written and processed in serial, not in parallel; meaning a new job/task is not started until the current one is done; if it's possible to do in parallel that's fine, but it's not a requirement.
- DATA LOADED INTO TEMPLATE: Using an existing excel template, the data is read from the static file or database location, and the data is "loaded" into the template; meaning that the data location mapping is static.
- PDF GENERATION: The PDF is created and given a filename based on data from the CSV file and stored to a set directory/folder location.
(If it's not clear, all of this should be automatically done and if the template calls are made/mapped to the same datastore locations - the excel template should be able to just be opened, edited and saved without having to create a custom template for the process.)
TARGET_OS: OS-X-10.5, Mac-Office-2011 (mainly due to the templates being created in Mac-Office-2011, though if needed the process could be run on CentOS 5.3 or Window Server 2008)
QUESTIONS: Please comment if you have questions, I've generated docs before writing to OpenOffice ODF XML, zipping the file, and printing the PDF (although, can't recall the command-line PDF tool I used.)