Modify Invoice Templates

[Chris Dennis]

Phil Longstaff wrote:
> On July 21, 2009 04:35:17 pm Paul Kruger wrote:
>> NOTE TO DEVELOPERS...the program is great EXCEPT for poor invoice
>> capabilities which makes in not-usable for most businesses.  There is no
>> way I can see any accountant trying to struggle with designing and printing
>> invoices with Gnucash unless he is also a graduate computer programmer.
>> Daisy the secretary will be totally lost.

> Re your suggestion: someone has done what you suggest.  2.3.3 (maybe 2.3.2 as 
> well, I can't remember), an unstable version that will be released tomorrow or 
> Thursday, contains 1) webkit replacement for gtkhtml as the report display 
> engine 2) work by Chris Dennis to define an html/css template for an invoice 
> that includes embedded SCM code to insert the data.  Since I'm the 2.3.X/2.4 
> release engineer, I've worked with him a bit to get it included in the release 
> so that people can try it.  However, it's not my area of interest.  If you 
> want to download it (I'm not sure if/how it can run in parallel with a current 
> 2.2.X installation on windows) and test it out and provide feedback, I'm sure 
> Chris would be delighted.

There are instructions on the wiki at 
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/index.php?title=Custom_Reports_Using_Eguile

eguile templates are still non-trivial to change because they are a 
mixture of HTML and Scheme code.  But with care it's possible to make 
changes to the HTML without having to learn much about Scheme.

I've tested eguile-based reports on Gnucash 2.2.6 and 2.2.9: they work 
but without the benefit of Webkit and CSS the layout is not as pretty.
With unstable versions 2.3.2 and later (and the upcoming 2.4 release), 
the results are much better.

cheers

Chris
-- 
Chris Dennis                                  cgdennis at btinternet.com
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK