Hello Tim,

I'm new to this board, but thought Id throw in a couple pennies.

I work for a custom dev shop, and we have been creating dynamic/automated pdf documents in one form or another since Acrobat v3. It is an old technology, but it still works. There's nothing wrong with it. There are other methods to render text, CSS has been mentioned, this will work well for the browser. Currently, we use XSLFO, which gives you nice control over page layout when rendering dynamic content.

I would suggest just building an administrative area that would allow a user to choose PDF or HTML versions.

Your project is pretty straightforward, you just need to find a good web developer. Things to think about... the pdf storage may become an issue, size wise, and portability issues. Also, think about access levels in your admin area. Someone may need to edit the docs, while others can only pull down and view.

The one "gotcha" in the project may be in HOW an author posts up an article/story. They probably aren't going to write the whole thing on your website form field. They will be using all sorts of crazy text editors each with differing character subsets. Try allowing users to copy paste 10 pages from MSWord... Fun fun fun! Getting clean data in the DB is important.

Ramble is over.... Back to your question.

What's the best way to do it? Hire a good web programmer with a SQL/PHP/PDF/XML/XSL track record.

Jeremy H.