Pro Forma V0.2.1 Copyright (c) 2001-2003 Scott Gifford --------------- Pro Forma is a GUI tool that lets you fill out forms on your computer like you would with a typewriter. It's a little bit cleverer than that, though; it can look at the document, find blank spaces where you're likely to type, and put a textbox there for you to type in, sitting right on top of the line. It's quick to learn and easy to use, and produces nice looking output. This release of Pro Forma is somewhat of a proof-of-concept release. It is somewhat flickery to use, and doesn't always work. Further, the code is somewhat ugly. Because of this, and because Pro Forma is not covered by any warranty, use at your own risk. Certainly don't do anything with it that would cause your world to end if it screwed up. For a list of known bugs in this release, see the file BUGS included with this distribution. Pro Forma is copyright (c) 2001-2003 by Scott Gifford, and is distributed under the GNU Public License. See the file COPYING included with this distribution for more information about Pro Forma's license, and your legal rights. Getting It ---------- You can always get the latest version of Pro Forma from its homepage, at: http://www.suspectclass.com/~sgifford/proforma/ Requirements ------------ Pro Forma requires some version of GNOME, which includes GTK and GDK. It also requires gnome-print, which may or may not be included with your GNOME distribution, and gdk-pixbuf, which may or may not be included with your GDK distribution. It requires a working C compiler and C library and a working copy of GhostScript. For printing, print previewing, and saving postscript output, it requires a PostScript previewer (like gv). It should run under any type of Unix, but has only been tested under Linux. Please let me know if you have patches to make it run on other operating systems, and I'll happily incorporate them. It was tested on a RedHat 7.2 distribution with Ximian GNOME (now Ximian GNOME) installed. To be more specific, the following configuration: gnome-libs 1.4.1.7 gtk 1.2.10 gdk-pixbuf 0.20.0 gnome-print 0.36 glibc 2.2.4 gcc 2.96 linux kernel 2.4.9 ghostscript 6.51 As you can see, I'm still using GNOME 1.x; I'm not sure how well this will work with 2.x. Compiling --------- Download and gunzip/untar a copy of proforma, then do the usual ./configure make make install described (generically) in INSTALL. When it looks like everything is working, you can test by going into the "examples" subdirectory, and running: proforma example.form You should see a properly completed City of Flint tax form for Joe Blow. If you don't, something went wrong; you should fix that before trying to work on any of your own forms. Using ----- If you followed the installation instructions, proforma will be installed in your $PATH. So just type "proforma" to run it. When it starts up, you'll just have an empty window with a menu in it. To create a new form, select the File menu, then select New. It will prompt you for an image containing the form to fill out. Any PostScript or Encapsulated PostScript file that GhostScript can understand should work. If you have a multi-page PostScript document you'd like to fill out, try using a program like psselect(1) (part of the psutils package) to extract the individual pages. If you have a PDF or non-encapsulated PostScript file, you can make it into an EPS with the GhostScript epswrite driver. Something like: gs -sDEVICE=epswrite -sOutputFile=passport_%d.eps ~/info/passport.pdf or gs -sDEVICE=epswrite -sOutputFile=passport_%d.eps ~/info/passport.ps will output each page of these documents into its own EPS file. I hope to make this conversion less annoying in a future release. When you've succesfully opened the EPS file, Pro Forma will display the image in its window. The image will be fairly large---it will display at roughly 144 dpi. You can change the scaling of the image using the View menu. You can scroll around using the scrollbars attached to it; you may find it more convenient if you make the window very large or maximized. When you've got an area of the form you'd like to type on viewable in the window, you can create an area to type in two ways. If the place you'd like to type is on top of a line or inside a box, just double-click reasonably close to the top of the line or the inside-bottom of the box, and Pro Forma will figure out a reasonable size to make a textbox, and put your cursor there to start typing. If you'd like to type someplace that isn't on top of a line, right-click and select "Add new field". This will draw a one-inch long box to type in. Once the box is on the screen, you can just start typing. You don't need to do anything when you're done; just continue creating the next field, or save or print preview if you are finished. If the box isn't the size you want, you can move it by right-clicking inside the box, and selecting "Move/resize textbox". That will draw four handles in the corners of the textbox for moving any of the four corners, and will allow you to move the entire textbox by clicking somewhere in the middle and dragging. While you are dragging the corners to resize, the cursor will "snap" to any black spots it sees on the page (you can turn this off with the Edit menu). Pro Forma doesn't currently support multi-line textboxes, so if you want to type a lot, you'll have to make several textboxes on top of each other. When you've got it the size you want, you can right-click in the textbox again, and select "Done with move/resize textbox" to remove the resizing handles, and set the behavior back to a normal textbox. If you decide you don't need a particular textbox any more, or if a textbox is created accidentally, just right-click in it, and select "Remove textbox". If you are working with a scanned form, lines may not be quite straigh, and artifacts may appear on the form. You can turn up ProForma's "fuzziness" using the Edit menu; the higher the fuzziness, the more crap it will tolerate. When you have created a few fields, you will probably want to save the form. To save a file which hasn't yet been named, go to the File menu and select "Save" or "Save As". You will be prompted to enter a filename to save as, and the locations and contents of the textboxes will be saved, along with the path of the base image for the form. Once Pro Forma knows the name of the file, you can just use File|Save to save it again in the same location. To open up a form you have previously saved, just use File|Open. Undo is currently not supported, so save often! To see what a form will look like with your fields filled in, just select File|Print Preview. ProForma will generate a PostScript file containing the filled-in form, and will then fire up a PostScript viewer to view it. It uses gv by default; you can set the GV environment variable to tell it another viewer to use (GNOME users may like ggv better). From the previewer, you should be able to save the PostScript file or print it. When you are done, select File|Close or File|Exit. Future ------ Features that I'd like to include in a future release of Pro Forma are in the TODO file. Bugs are in the BUGS file. If you have any suggestions that aren't in that file, please email me and let me know.