Hi everybody..my name is Scott and, while I am not a total noob as far as web design and HTML go, I am getting back into making websites after a few years of being " out of the loop " so to speak..when I first learned to build websites there was no talk of php and no coldfusion, so getting back into this has given me great pause regarding a few things, please bear with me as I may come across as a moron but in reality im just really confused,

I am working on a small ecommerce site right now, and so far so good..I have the shopping cart page and the collection page working fine, I have the capability of automatically printing the orders that come to our dedicated email, and all that is working great. ( fingers crossed it stays that way ).

What I am trying to do now ( this is where I get lost as I have never attempted this before and am not sure if it is possible using HTML ) is make it so that whenever we get an order placed, once that order is sent to our email, and it prints out automatically ( as i stated before ) that the information in that email ( name, billing add, shipping add and other important info ) gets passed into a prebuilt form so that it comes out formatted like an actual order form instead of a plain text email. We get so much info in some of these mails that the printed version gets to looking like a jumbled mess. I thought maybe of using .php to dynamically populate a existing pdf form, and while i have a slight idea of how that would work, i have little to absolutley no clue how to get that pdf to print in place of the text email we normally recieve. Am I on the right track at least or is this something that just cant be done or cant be done the way I am planning ?
As I said, I am very lost and have been banging my head against a wall trying to figure this out, and so far have had NO LUCK at all. If there is anyone who would be so kind as to give me a nudge in the right direction, I would be eternally grateful.
Thanks in advance for any help or advice anyone here would see fit to offer !

Well, the server-side (e.g., PHP) program that processes the form data can do whatever you want. It's more a question of deciding what your real needs are, and designing a system that will work for your business.

Are you sure you need orders printed, rather than tracking them online?

Hey Darin..thanks so much for the response !
In answer to your question, the order would need to be printed, if only for the fact that our screening crew gets those order forms to begin making the shirts. I thought long and hard about using a database to track them ( again, not 100% sure if a sql database would provide what i need in that regard ), but the mere fact that I need the orders to be recieved in real time ( as soon as they come in, I mean ), as opposed to having our screeners need to access a database to see the new orders that have been placed. I wasnt sure if there was any other way to make it so that our production ppl could instantly see when a new order came in other than have it print out immediately upon reciept. The idea to have that printout in a form was something our boss had come up with, but as it stands now I think he realizes that is purely asthetic and not necesary. The text email that prints provides them with all the information they need for the order and after some discussion, I think I got him to realize that the rest is, as they say just window dressing. Plus, it frees my time to do other things for our site that are actually needed, lol.
Again, thanks very very much for the reply Darin, I appreciate it a lot.
One last question, are there any sites or online tuts on html, javascript or php that you would recommend ? Thanks again !

Please see the FAQ entry Where can I learn about HTML? and the entries that follow it.