This program (makepo) will parse a plain text file containing keywords 
and their values, and generate a postscript and pdf copy of the finished
purchase order.  This program should work on all unix systems, but requires
the following utilities:

o  The Perl interpreter (/usr/bin/perl)
o  The Latex typsetting system
o  The ps2pdf program

To try it out, in this directory simply type

./makepo sample

This will produce a latex file sample.tex and then process this file to 
produce the files sample.ps and sample.pdf.  

To create your own P.O., copy sample to something else (recall the 
purchasing department rules concerning the naming of electronic files).
For example, if I wanted to create my first P.O. of the day, I would name
the file with my initials, the date, and put a 1 to indicate that it is
the first P.O. of the day:

cp sample tsk050702_1

Next, edit the new file to your liking and run makepo on it.  You may
wish to copy makepo to a directory in your execution path (like 
/usr/local/bin) so that you don't need the ./ in front of the command.

The first 20 items will appear on the main page.  After that, additional
pages will be created with 50 items per page.

In the previous example, I would then attach the tsk050702_1.pdf file to
an email and send it to pos@physics.ucsb.edu.  Mike Deal has said that the 
format of these files is acceptable. 

Good luck, and I hope this tool is useful to you.  If you have any questions,
send me email at kisner@physics.ucsb.edu.

-Ted Kisner