What pdfChip is Not
While the rest of this book focusses on what pdfChip is, this chapter explains what it is not. Because there are a number of products out there that could easily be confused with pdfChip, it's important you realise what you should and should not try to do with pdfChip. Of course your own creativity still rules, but keep this chapter in mind if you're looking at using pdfChip in your workflow.
A Tool, not a Solution
However powerful pdfChip is, don't expect it to solve all of your workflow issues. pdfChip is a specialized tool to convert HTML files of any level of complexity into first-class PDF documents. It can be an awesome addition to your workflow (see the "Use Cases" chapter for ways in which it can help) but it will always be an addition to the workflow or the application you are building.
Not a Report Engine
The first thing that might come to mind when thinking about pdfChip is to use it to generate simple documents such as reports or receipts. While pdfChip can definitely be used to accomplish this, keep in mind that it is not a report engine. If your documents are very simple, you might not need a specialized tool such as pdfChip to create them. And it it's really reporting you are after, keep in mind that pdfChip doesn't have customized functionality out of the box to support that.
Of course it's possible to write an HTML file which will produce nice reports including tables, lists, graphs and everything else you might want. But in the end it will probably take a lot of time to accomplish this and the cost for pdfChip and its implementation might become prohibitively high.
Not a Web Site Conversion Tool
Yes, pdfChip takes HTML and converts it into PDF using a WebKit engine. But no, that doesn't mean it will convert arbitrary HTML or web site pages into nicely printable PDF. pdfChip was designed to take a specially crafted HTML file and provide a range of functionalities that a web site grabber / converter would not possess. If your need is to just convert existing web pages into PDF, you'll likely find better tools out there.