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