[texhax] Newbie Question: (La)TeX Good Choice for Data Collection Forms in PDF?

[Rolf Turner]

On 9/09/2009, at 3:37 AM, Jack Ort wrote:

>
> Hello!  I apologize if this is the wrong place to ask this  
> question, but I have been frantically searching for information on  
> TeX and LaTex, and whether or not it would be a good choice for  
> designing data collection forms.  Specifically these would be  
> clinical Case Report Forms (CRFs), where patient data such as vital  
> signs, laboratory results, etc. would need to be collected across  
> multiple clinic visits.  Typically these forms will have groups of  
> empty boxes (with labels) for manual entry, questions with Yes/No  
> checkboxes, lines for capturing free-text comments, and often  
> tabular data entry sections as well.
>
> Ideally, forms could be stored in a "library" for reuse and  
> modification as needed.
>
> Eventually these forms need to go to PDF, either for printing or  
> for conversion to a data entry screen for a web-based data  
> collection system.
>
> We are considering Framemaker, but the cost and learning curve are  
> steep!  If it is relevant, would be using a Windows XP system to  
> run whatever package we choose.
>
> Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!


Basically you can do *anything* in LaTeX.  You might have to fiddle  
around a bit at
first, especially if you are new to LaTeX, but what you want to do  
can be done without
great sweat.

Once you get a template built, it should be very easy to modify and  
adapt it.

Producing pdf files from LaTeX input is essentially automatic.

I don't know from doing things under Windoze myself, but I know that  
a lot
of people use MikTex under Windoze and are very happy with it.

Keep Lamport's book *on your desk* when you're working with LaTeX, at  
least
initially.  You can't intuit how to do things; you have to look them up
(and eventually remember).

There is of course a learning curve with LaTeX; how difficult you  
find it depends
on your personal proclivities and ``where you're coming from''.   
Personally
I found it virtually instantaneous to learn, but OTOH I cannot learn  
to do ***anything***
with (eeeyeuchhh!) Word, even with a gun held at my head.

LaTeX has the big advantage of being toadally free.  There are lots  
of online sources
of info and tutorials.  Like anything, you have know a bit about what  
you're looking
for before these resources do you much good.  There is also this very  
helpful mailing
list --- but it is mainly useful for precisely posed problems.  A  
question like ``how
do I build a Case Report Form?'' is probably too broad and vague to  
illicit much in
the way of useful responses.  OTOH someone out there might have  
already built such
a form and would be willing to send you the *.tex file to give you  
something to work
from.

Another advantage of LaTeX is that you have the recipe for building  
the form you want;
the *.tex file ***is*** the recipe.  There is no question of  
wondering ``how did they
do that?''  The how is written down.

Bottom line, if you've got to climb a learning curve, it might as  
well be the LaTeX
learning curve.

	cheers,

		Rolf Turner

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