In 2009, I wrote an article for the Rails Magazine Issue #4 - The Future of Rails - where I presented an alternative to PDF generation from ODF templates, which can be generated using a regular text processor such as OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Office (after converting the document to ODF).

You can read the entire article downloading this magazine for free or purchasing it. The application code illustrating this approach was published by the magazine on Github.

Unfortunately, I can't host a working system providing a live demonstration due to my Heroku account limitations, but it should be easy to follow the instructions in the article on your development or production environment.

Do not hesitate in sending me any questions, through comments on this site or by e-mail, if you prefer.