Batch printing from a template and generated input - ideas?

[szatox]

Nothing urgent nor important, simply a call for a brainstorming session which might come in handy some time in the future.

Let's say I have a pile of identical paper forms to fill for a truckload of objects. A simple, boring task, that must be repeated many times on different data.
So, we have a black box providing us inputs which must be placed on the paper form in particular locations, and we want to do it with minimal effort. Combining input text and layout template must be non-interactive, otherwise just writing it with a pen would win like 9/11 times. Pretty much anyone can use a pen without additional training.

The perfect solution would probably be some way to create a mile-long PDF file with all the generated data laid out according to the provided template, which could then be printed by anyone with a single click. Controlling the printer itself is out of scope.
Oh, the empty paper forms come pre-printed, so the whole thing should lean towards producing more precise and controllable results.
Forms and objects are processed separately though, so printing 1 form at a time does not provide any benefits (it's not labels - though it is kinda close)


So, any ideas how to approach this? What tools could be used and how?
Has anyone tried making something similar?

[pingtoo]

Just food for thought

When I was young, my office use NeXT computer and its printer. We are financial company so we have lots of report/statement need to print. So I wrote postscript program for printing. the postscript is with prelude to serve as template and use perl to read data from file/database and wrote out postscript instruction to use prelude to send to printer.

I guess nowadays it is a little bit harder since there is no postscript display system. but will the ghostscript do similar thing?

[mike155]

LibreOffice Mail Merge?
LaTeX + some scripts?

[szatox]

Postscript was the first thing I looked at actually, it does look promising, and gs can turn ps file into a pdf with predictable pagination, so it is an option. Too bad, I didn't have a lot of luck finding quality resources for learning postscript. I mean, there are some books, but figuring things out will take some research. Still, looks doable.
Fun fact: postscript is actually a programming language, and the printable ps document is actually a text file.

Mail merge at the first glance looks interactive, and that's a no-no.
LaTeX... Dunno, maybe? I'm kinda late to the show, since I've never used it. I think it's a tool for a different task, would it allow me to arbitrarily position text on a page? Having classes of content is nice and cool, but I need something more raw. I mean, I don't want it to organize things in space for me, I will know in advance how the document is to be organized, and whatever the tool, it has to stick to my plan instead of coming up with a better one.