I am in the process of setting up a small company
and trying to utilize Linux as the sole OS.

This company is no differant than most others; they
need various types of business forms and documents. We have all of
their customer/clients loaded into a MySQL db along with
any associated customer info. What I am looking for is
a way/type of system to manage all of the forms.

For instance, a business contract. Should a guy create
a LyX template, and a perl script or two to pull
customer data (name, address, etc) out of the db and
automatically generate a lyx document/contract? Is there a better
way? How about generating XML documents? I was thinking that
one could create a few style_sheets and dtd's and just
dynamically build them from the db and printed right
from a browser. Then I remembered that placing images
in xml documents (e.g company logo) is a nightmare
and almost defeats the purpose of xml in the 1st place.
Then again, is there anything wrong with good ole fashioned
Perl/CGI to generate html output?

I know a slew of small businesses that have piles upon
piles of excel & word docs....I do not want to follow
the same type of logic using Linux equivalants.

I can see 3 main areas (for this application):
* business contracts (1 per client)
* customized various forms (5-10 per client)
* invoices (hopefully many per client :)

Ideally, I would like ALL information (dynamic) stored within
a (the) database.

I'd be interested in hearing some thoughts on how to
create/manage business documents/forms in Linux.

v/r
-Mike