For the side jobs I take on whether it's video editing or small design projects for friends I run a small business. And like any freelancer, I’ve had to deal with the repetitive task of creating professional-looking documents and invoices. Instead of doing it manually every time, I thought: why not use my programming skills to make this easier (and way more fun)? That’s why I’m currently working on a prototype aimed at streamlining this process. Built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, this tool can load Excel files, read data from sheets, and extract all the useful project details I need. The end goal? A clean, stylized PDF output I can send directly to the companies I work with fast, consistent, and professional. It’s still in development, but it’s already proving to be a huge step toward better efficiency and workflow automation for my freelance work. Just one more way I’m using code to solve real problems in my day-to-day.
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"Work smarter, not harder." - Allen F. Morgenstern
Sure! Here's a cleaner and more natural rewrite of your paragraph: --- The first step for the user is to add company information. If the details are already saved in the system, they can simply select the company from a dropdown menu. If not, the information can be entered manually. Once the fields are filled in, the user is shown a summary of the entered data. If everything looks correct, they can move on to the next step in the generator.
The next step in the generator is adding the items I want to declare for payment. There are two ways to do this. The first is manual entry typing each item into the field and checking the necessary boxes. It works fine for smaller jobs, but when I have, say, 48 items to add… yeah, not ideal. So, to save time and sanity, I added a second option: loading Excel sheets. Since I already use spreadsheets to archive every video I’ve edited, I can simply select the relevant file, choose the sheet where the items are stored, and import them directly into the generator with just a few clicks. Fast, efficient, and a big step toward making this tool something I’ll actually want to use.
Next, all the data from my own info, the company’s details, and the listed items will be compiled into a styled PDF file that can be downloaded and sent directly to the client. Well… that’s the plan! This part of the project isn’t fully finished yet. The current styling doesn’t quite match the look of my usual templates, and the PDF export functionality still needs work. But it’s high on my to-do list, and something I’m aiming to refine in the upcoming iterations.
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