Create printouts from data submitted in a form.

Question

Long story short:
I'm looking to set up a system that automatically creates a document from data submitted in a form. So imagine I type "Jason" in the name field, "Orangutans" in the favorite animal field, and when I click print I'm presented with an A4/Letter document that says "my name is Jason and I love Orangutans" and the background is covered in cute orange apes. Where do I start?
Long story long:
I work at a computer store and due to my experience with Adobe products* I've been tasked with creating all the signage in the store. I've been doing all the signs for a year now and now we have a bunch of different signs that need printing every day. The most in-depth and time-consuming ones for me are signs for Trade-In computers. Unlike new computers, the specs are always different based on the particular model we buyback from the client. There are all kinds of fields that are different in each case.
As it stands, I have an illustrator file with all the information in the right place, and when a computer comes in I take all the specs, fill in the right boxes and unhide the image layer so I get an image of the corresponding model on my document. This takes considerable time, and means the process is specific to me, i.e if I'm not in the store, the computers don't get put up for sale beacuse we can't add a spec/price sheet.
What I want to do is automate the process so that anyone in the store can make these signs. All they will have to do is fill in a form (online or locally) that asks for model, year, RAM, HDD, etc**. Then when they click submit it returns a completed sign that they can print and put up next to the computer.
I'm not entirely sure how to accomplish this. I've looked at Adobe's free online FormCreater***, and I like the simple data output that it creates. However, I'm uncertain as to my next steps. I imagine I'll need it to send the results to a computer with blank templates for the Trade-In computers. It would then need to populate the applicable fields and automate all the work I usually do.
Where should I start? I'm willing to learn anything to get this working.
Thanks,
Jason
*Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, inDesign
**Total of ~18 text and 4 image fields need to be changed per sign.
***http://www.adobe.com/ca/products/acrobat/form-creator.html

Answer 1

I'm willing to learn anything to get this working.
Excellent! Right attitude.
Where should I start?
With my favorite "graphics program": FileMaker Pro. (Yep. My favorite graphics-project tool is a relational database program.)
You see, you've discovered something that graphics people are discovering with increasing frequency all the time: Your project is not a graphics problem. It's a data problem.
Note how little of your problem has to do with graphics. Emphasis mine:
...we have a bunch of different signs that need printing every day.
the specs are always different based on the particular model
automate the process so that anyone in the store can make these signs
All they will have to do is fill in a form (online or locally)
an image of the corresponding model
See if this scenario sounds appealing:
You have on your computer a single file, named TradeIns. You or one of your authorized users doubleClick it. It opens to a nicely organized form that is completely self-explanatory; requires absolutely no training to use.
It's completely idiot proof. The user doesn't have to know anything about any graphics program. He can't break anything.
Consistency is maintained because everything that can be automated is. Dependency intelligence is built in. Popup menus limit data entries to legitimate choices (ex: Models). Subsequent data entry choices are automatically filtered based on data already entered (ex: RAM configurations limited to those possible for Model). User prompts and hints (highlighting, event-driven messages, tooltips, data validation, etc.) make sure that all required information is entered.
When the data entry is done, the user clicks a button labeled Print Preview: A3 Poster. The display automatically changes to a pre-defined A3 formatted layout with all the data graphically styled (Headline, descriptive blurb, bullet list of features, price, etc., etc.), the company logo and contact info in place, and a graphic of the appropriate model appears in the background. The user clicks a button labeled Print Poster. Next to it, by the way, is a button labeled Email Poster To...
If you want, you can enable up to five people concurrently to access and interact with the solution in their web browsers from anywhere. So the data entry can be performed by staff members who logon (according to access priviledges you define and control down to the individual field level if need be) in the office, from home, or even on their iPhone. Multiple users can enter/edit data at the same time.
It's 2:00 Tuesday when Customer leaves with his new machine. You clean up his trade-in a little; put it on the display shelf. Pull out your iPhone and take a photo of it. Tap the specs in. The data, including the photo, are simultaneously entered into the database. You lock the door and go home at 5:00, confident that a formatted sales flier of "Just Arrived" trade-ins will be automatically emailed to your mail list before you get home.
You, having admin priviledges, can add to, alter, elaborate upon the functionality (ex; add an automatic price calculator) anytime you need, with no downtime on the system.
How difficult, time-consuming is this?
Once the requirement details are nailed down, and the raw beginning data for populating values lists is provided, an intermediate level FileMaker developer could build the above-described solution and have it up and running, ready for data entry, in less than a day, easy.
Cost? $500 for one copy of FileMaker Pro Advanced. That's it. (And...*achem*...it's not rented; it's a normal perpetual license.) And with it you can build an unlimited number of other data-driven solutions for your business. You can even bind them as fully-functional standalone applications which you can distribute without royalties.
Based on what you've described so far, the solution's starting data schema would be very simple:
Create a new database with three related tables:
Models
Trade Ins
Specs
The fields for each table would be something like this:
Models
Model ID (primary key; text; unique)
Model Name (text)
Brand (text)
Image (container)
Trade Ins
Trade In ID (primary key; text; computer's serial number)
Model ID (foreign key; text; value list)
Specs
Spec ID (auto-enter serial number)
Model ID (foreign key)
Trade In ID (foreign key)
Spec Name (value list)
Description (text)
You'd have two Layouts (screens): Data Entry and A3 Poster. You could build as many additional Layouts to display whatever combinations of the data you want for as many purposes as you may encounter. Export to PDFs or Excel spreadsheets any time. Build automated reports with live graphs, use conditional formatting, automate with scripts, etc., etc.
Marvelous program. Every business should have it.
JET