The key to the process is the use of postscript. Mayura Draw produces files that are easily edited, perl provides a scripting language with the necessary capabilities and Progress is the driving application. There is no dependency on Unix, although that is all we have used. With minor changes to pdx2ps it would probably work on any platform on which perl is available. The basic process is to create the form in Mayura Draw, convert it to generic postscript using the perl script pdx2ps and then write the Progress procedure to use it.
Every step is simple and no knowledge of postscript is required other than what is presented here.
The level of Progress knowledge needed is minimal. The method is almost identical to the definition of a form in postscript that can be stored in the memory of a printer and called by your postscript code when needed. However, we print lots of different documents and so this was not the best option. We have used the term variable in connection with postscript in this document since that will be familiar to Progress programmers. Postscript Form Generation Using Mayura Draw, create the required form.