Custom printing from web form data?

[Dan Coutu]

I have an interesting challenge to meet. I can think of one way to solve it 
but was wondering if others knew of already existing tools or techniques 
that might make it easier.

What I'm trying to accomplish is to print certificates (to be snail-mailed) 
based on data collected from a form on a web site. I think it would be most 
efficient to print from a cron job using the data that had been previously 
collected and stored in a useful place, like a MySQL database.

The tricky part is that the certificates should look fairly classy, which 
means they can't be just plain ASCII text. They should include graphic 
elements such as your typical certificate border with the fancy artwork. Of 
course multiple colors are required too.

My thinking was to use a wee bit o' perl along with Latex and pre-made 
graphic elements to crank out a PostScript file for each certificate, then 
queue it up to the color printer.

Any other ideas out there?
-- 

Dan Coutu
Managing Director
Snowy Owl Internet Consulting, LLC
http://www.snowy-owl.com/
Mobile: 603-759-3885
Fax: 603-673-6676