[Psml] Paperless Reporting and Record Keeping

[Barclay M. Thomas]

Dan, R.D., and all,
Not that I am an expert but, while Rich Text Format (RTF) is easily  
read and written by most word processing programs, any document  
formatting is often lost or skewed in the transition. Portable  
Document Format (PDF) is designed by default to retain all formatting  
of the original document no matter what platform or program it is  
viewed in.
Yes, it may take another step or two to save a file in PDF, but it  
makes for a better archive since all the data will remain in the  
right place. You can always save the PDF as a text (.txt) file if you  
want to alter it.

I have not paid too much attention to what is out there in terms of  
PDF creation/conversion programs, but there are a lot and many are  
not too expensive or are free. Of course you get what you pay for. I  
do know there are some open-source programs that are quite capable  
though. Take a look at <http://sourceforge.net>, but don't get  
overwhelmed by all the projects (grin).

That being said, it would be nice if the forms on the National  
website had all the data input spaces (i.e.: quantity, price, etc.)  
created as text fields so a blank original can be downloaded and save  
as a template, then filled out as needed. Of course I am only looking  
for someone else to do the work so I don't have to. But once it's  
done, it's done.

Enjoy the weekend,
-- 
P/C Barclay M. Thomas, AP
Saybrook Power Squadron, D-1


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