9.3  Forms 

Forms can be created much the same way as graphs in previous example in chapter 9.2.1: By first creating 

a report file and streaming it back to client. This chapter gives a brief example of one possible solution. 

These chapters provide 

two

 ways to creating forms as an example. It does this first by creating a 

Postscript 

file of the form, in which fields are specially named. When the form is processed, these fields 

(like 

LABTEST

) are replaced by real values from live data. However, more usable and a better document 

format for this purpose is 

Rich Text Format

 (RTF). RTF documents are stored as text data and can be 

opened with most modern word processors such as Microsoft Word. 

Third alternative is to use some commercial server side form creation and/or conversion software which 

usually can produce many kinds of output, such as Postscript, RTF or 

Portable Document Format 

(PDF). PDF is a very popular platform independent document format. 

9.3.1  Creating a form 

First we create the form that is used in printing. Below is a picture of a simple form containing two fields, 

created with Microsoft Word. The form has been saved into a RTF document. 

The form contains a picture from Word's clip art library and seven(7) fields. The fields (TODAY, 

LABTEST, NAME OF THE TEST, INUSE, DATE, PERSON, LENGTH) have been tagged so that 

they can be replaced with real values when the form is processed. 

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