Printing a set of forms

[Tod Olson]

My current project involves printing financial forms to send to the
Office of the Comptroller (so the university will cut checks for our
invoices).  A data file comes in and programs generate the forms.
Currently this uses the doc package, forms are one to a file and the
program has to manage multiple .lt files and invoke lout once per
file.  The end result is good, but the print management is awkward.

I would like to put all of this data into one .lt file.  Simplified,
the end result should look like so, one form per sheet:

    +----------------------------------------------+
    | Vendor: 213  Date: 06-23-99  Invoice: 1234-45|
    -----------------------------------------------+
    |             Table of data                    |
    +----------------------------------------------+
    | Submitted: 07-08-99                          |
    +----------------------------------------------+
    ^L
    +----------------------------------------------+
    | Vendor: 666  Date: 07-01-99  Invoice: 2143-78|
    -----------------------------------------------+
    |             Table of data                    |
    +----------------------------------------------+
    | Submitted: 07-08-99                          |
    +----------------------------------------------+

Putting all the forms into one file poses a couple problems:

1. The document header is different for each form (Vendor, Date,
   Invoice all change)

2. Assuming @Doc per form, can one string together multiple @Doc
   objects?  I've not been able to.

I envision a form package that could produce the above sequence of two
forms like somewhat like so:

    @FormList {
      @Form @Header { @VoucherHead @Vendor 213
                                   @VDate 06-23-99
                                   @Invoice 1234-45 }
            @Footer { @SubDate 07-08-99 }
      { Table Data }
      @Form @Header { @VoucherHead @Vendor 666
                                   @VDate 07-01-99
                                   @Invoice 2143-78 }
            @Footer { @SubDate 07-08-99 }
      { More Table Data }
    }

Questions:

1. Would this be reasonable to implement?  A @Form would have to
   start a new page, for example.

2. Could I use the dsf package to take advatage of the page layout
   work it already does?  Eg., could @Form place its @Header and
   @Footer directly into @PageTopPlace and @PageFootNotePlace?  Or
would I work off of bsf and do my own page layout work?

Ideas appreciated, and please tell me if I'm barking up the wrong
tree.

Thanks.

Tod A. Olson                        "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
address@hidden               "If you weren't mad, you wouldn't have
The University of Chicago Library    come here," said the Cat.