RE: Printable report generation

I've had a fair amount of success using MS Access via an ODBC connection to
a Postgres backend.

In the past year, I've rolled out 4 larger web apps (university website)
that comprise of a multi-user environment. Each app uses Access for all of
the data entry and reports where necessary.

Depending on the speed of your network, it may be a little slower than
desired, but never-the-less, it gets the job done. I wrote the apps in a
hurry, so I'm probably not optimized very much.

The ODBC driver is available at http://odbc.postrgesql.org/

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug McNaught [SMTP:doug(at)wireboard(dot)com]
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 12:32
To: SMJ
Cc: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: Printable report generation

SMJ <meebus(at)stark(dot)51glen> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm currently in the progress of setting up a databasing system for a
> sales company, using a pure Linux / Postgresql solution. I've
> traditionally used MS Access 97 for the setup of similar systems, and
have
> yet to work out one problem -
>
> What is a viable way to generate printable 'reports', in a similar
fashion
> provided by MS Access?

I don't know if there is a ny kind of GUI report generating tool for
Linux/PG. There might be.

> For example, say I've got a postgresql database of client information
> (names, addresses, etc.), and I want to use this information to generate
> envelopes for mailouts. As far as my understanding goes, such
> functionality is not provided by postgresql itself.

Yes, Access is a frontend/backend combo (and can actually connect to
multiple brands of backend via ODBC) whereas PG is a pure backend.
Reporting is a frontend function.

> Any help would be appreciated.

I'd personally do reporting by writing Perl scripts (generating either
text or HTML), but that might not suit you.

If a Windows box is allowable in the mix, you could set up either
Crystal Reports or Access with the PG ODBC driver and do reports etc
that way.

-Doug
--
Free Dmitry Sklyarov!
http://www.freesklyarov.org/

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