14
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Ceedling@compuverse.uk to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

I keep running my head into a wall working on a project and I am hoping you guys can help me. I have created a database that contains the addresses of contacts. What I need to accomplish is generating paper reports of these addresses. So, for example, I may have 25 addresses on one report related by some other data point. I figured that I should easily be able to pull info from my database and fill a PDF template with it that I could then print out, but this has proven harder than expected.

So far, I've tried airtable and notion (I know, but I was temporarily having server issues and I need to get this project done) I've also tried baserow and nocodb, and yet I can't seem to figure out how to generate printable reports from my data.

Does anyone else know of an option? I've seen a recommendation for creating a spreadsheet or word document as a template that you then copy/paste your data into, but that feels... inelegant? Would something like appsmith or budibase be capable of this? Or is there some other (preferably self-hosted) software to accomplish this? I appreciate any help you can give me.

Edit: Sorry everyone, I guess I didn't make it very clear. First off, I've been using the programs above to make my dB's. So for instance, my nocodb is set up to use mysql. I didn't generate the dB on my own, and admittedly, I've never interacted with a db directly using SQL markup before.I was hoping my goal could be accomplished with a low/no-code option as my coding skills are rudimentary right now.

As someone asked, for a printable-report, yes PDF is an option. As would a word document or spreadsheet, for that matter, just so long as I can get it into a nice, print-friendly format.

I do appreciate all the suggestions so far, and will look into them. Thanks!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago
  1. I'm assuming you're using a "normal" DB like MySQL/PostgreSQL.
  2. Select entries with common attributes (just search for the syntax to select rows based on attributes for your DB).
  3. Utilise a PowerShell script/Shell script/Python/any other language you're comfortable with to parse the output from the DB into a file.
    • I mentioned PowerShell since you want to create an excel file, and using objects (assigning attributes to said object) might be easier to handle writing to a file with, rather than using regex/awk if you're using Shell (although that's fun in its own way).
  4. Write to file. PowerShell has modules to write to excel/csv, I don't think a Shell script could do that as easily but you can definitely find a way (note that if you try using PowerShell on Linux, the modules I mentioned might not work).

Cheers

this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
14 points (88.9% liked)

Selfhosted

39677 readers
195 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS