convert data list to image

[freshfitz]

I have a customer who pulls data from a database, they want to be able to display the info as a pic so the end user can not copy and paste the data in an excel spreadsheet any idea of what I could use to do this

[almostbob]

Serverside php asp perl using the same techniques used to generate captcha scripts
in php

header ("Content-type: image/png");
$im = @imagecreatetruecolor(500, 300)
    or die("Cannot Initialize new GD image stream");
$text_color = imagecolorallocate($im, 233, 14, 91);
imagestring($im, 3, 5, 5,  "A Simple Text String", $text_color);
imagestring($im, 3, 5, 45,  "A Second Text String", $text_color);
imagestring($im, 3, 5, 85,  "A Third Text String", $text_color);
imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);

The image strings can be data from the table output, the image can be sized to suit the number of lines of text output by adjusting the definitions $im = @imagecreatetruecolor(500, 40*$lines) The image generation is simply included as <img src='imagegenerator.php'> in a page, image generator can be set to parse parameters ?1=text1@2=text2, or can be the actual dbase processor

[MidiMagic]

They can't prevent such a use of the data. I have some simple software that extracts text from images. It could easily reconstruct the information. So can anyone who can type.

Why are you so afraid that people will use the information? That's what the Internet is for.

I believe that intellectual property will become a thing of the past within ten years. The internet will make it totally impossible to maintain.

[Murtan]

Making it images makes it harder for people to extract, so fewer people will do it, so there is some benefit.

If the goal is to reduce automated screen scraping, they have at least increased the amount of effort required.

Your last comment about intellectual property being a thing of the past, should probaly have been in some social discussion forum, but just in passing, if information has no value, why would anyone spend money to acquire it in the first place?

[MidiMagic]

The Internet will remove all of the value.

[Murtan]

The Internet will remove all of the value.

So I if I have some IP that I paid for and want to preserve the value for I should never put it on the internet at all?

[MidiMagic]

Sort of.

The availability of information for free over the Internet will eventually remove all value from anything that can be posted on the Internet. You would not need to pay for it.

[Joyce Sullivan]

It's really difficult to do this type of job but give me some time.

[freshfitz]

thanks that php code worked