printing invoice To PDF

I need to write a program that retrieves information from a database and creates an invoice in a pdf format based on the information.

I would like to write the program in C# or Java, preferably not开发者_高级运维 C++ as I think it would take too long to code.

I was wondering what Language would be best and what api's from these languages would provide the best results, and if possible some documentation(and a little tutorial would be nice). I need something simple but has to have a bit of customised content(colored Tables and fonts and whatnot).

In Java, I have found the iText API to be very handy.

http://www.itextpdf.com/

iText is the de-facto standard for creating PDFs in Java, I would recommend this. There is also a C# implementation of the iText API.

Also, as a sidenote, Adobe flex allows you to create client-side PDFs using an open source library called AlivePDF, which I've found to work well for basic PDF generation that bypasses server-side processing.

For C# you could use ITextSharp

http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp/

Typically you're scenario calls for some form of Business Intelligence and/or Reporting Tool. There are a few around (some open source, some not):

• BIRT
• Crystal Reports
• Jasper Reports
• ..

The ones I know are not heavy on programming but more on configuration of the data-sources and creation of the templates.