Faxing and pdf'ing

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by allistar >> Tue, 13 May 2003 4:18:48 GMT

Hi all,
I am doing a research project at the moment to find the best pdf and faxing solutions that we can use. My goals are:

a) a fax pseudo printer driver is the preferred approach for faxing
b) the fax details must be able to be specified programatically with no user intervention
c) low (if not no) licencing costs.
d) Does not require any additional software (such as MS Fax servers etc.) to be installed.
e) Must work on all Windows flavours, and ideally on Linux and AIX as well.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Regards,
Allistar.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Allistar Melville
Software Developer, Analyst allistar@silvermoon.co.nz
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Silvermoon Software
Specialising in JADE development and consulting
Visit us at: http://www.silvermoon.co.nz ------------------------------------------------------------------

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by tyc >> Tue, 20 May 2003 4:30:15 GMT

Hi...

I am currently using pdfedit995.. which converts the word doc to pdf.. it's free as far as I know [though you have to put up with a pop up
html advert]..

maybe can try that and see if it's useful for you

http://www.pdf995.com

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by allistar >> Tue, 20 May 2003 18:46:14 GMT

Thanks,
I'll look into it. Unfortunately we need a solution that requires no user intervention (hence no pop-ups).

Regarding faxing: I have decided that a product/API called FaxMan
looks quite good, has anyone had any experience with this? How else
are people faxing from Jade (in a automated, no user interface way).

Thanks,
Allistar. ------------------------------------------------------------------
Allistar Melville
Software Developer, Analyst allistar@silvermoon.co.nz
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Silvermoon Software
Specialising in JADE development and consulting
Visit us at: http://www.silvermoon.co.nz
*NEW* Simple web access to Jade at: www.silvermoon.co.nz/jhp.html ------------------------------------------------------------------

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by barryg >> Tue, 20 May 2003 20:29:13 GMT

we use rightFax for enterprise faxing also has interface we use from jade where
you embed the phone nos and other stuff in a special font at the top of the print file.

Works good for what is worth ....

Barry.

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by allistar >> Tue, 20 May 2003 21:30:08 GMT

Thanks for that. Looks quite pricey though. We need to deploy it to
over 250 sites, so cost is important.

Allistar.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Allistar Melville
Software Developer, Analyst allistar@silvermoon.co.nz
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Silvermoon Software
Specialising in JADE development and consulting
Visit us at: http://www.silvermoon.co.nz
*NEW* Simple web access to Jade at: www.silvermoon.co.nz/jhp.html ------------------------------------------------------------------

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by michaelj >> Wed, 21 May 2003 8:38:35 GMT

A few years ago, I implemented FaxMan Jr into jade. Back then the activeX interface could not be loaded straight into jade so I had to create a VB wrapper. If I recall correctly Jade 5.2 rectified this problem though + It eventually allowed it to run as a non gui app. Regarding faxman, it is easy to use and the licencing scheme was quite good (development only) back when I used it. Plus Faxman supports multi-port fax boards while many other fax API do not, though I dont think the Jr variation does this. Performance was acceptable, It was used to fax multi pageTiff images, Both the Tiff generation and faxing were done by server non gui apps. Any time lag I encountered was mainly related to the fax card processing large image sizes, so I would recommend keeping the image byte size down as much as possible.

Good Luck
Michael J

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by allistar >> Wed, 21 May 2003 18:51:52 GMT

Thanks for the info Michael,
From what I have read the Faxman product works through a pseudo printer driver, and before "printing" anything to it you use an API to set the faax details (like phone number etc.) Is that what you experienced? I would rather not shag around with making TIFs and then faxing them if I can avaoid it.

Thanks again,
Allistar.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Allistar Melville
Software Developer, Analyst allistar@silvermoon.co.nz
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Silvermoon Software
Specialising in JADE development and consulting
Visit us at: http://www.silvermoon.co.nz
*NEW* Simple web access to Jade at: www.silvermoon.co.nz/jhp.html ------------------------------------------------------------------

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by michaelj >> Thu, 22 May 2003 9:46:08 GMT

Allistar,
I was generating the documents from the database to the point of faxing so the activeX libraries were more suitable. Regarding using the printer driver, it does work that way however I have only used the libraries so cannot recommend the printer driver one way or the other.


Michael.

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by michaelj >> Thu, 22 May 2003 9:48:54 GMT

Allistar,
I was generating the documents from the database to the point of faxing so the activeX libraries were more suitable. Regarding using the printer driver, it does work that way however I have only used the libraries so cannot recommend the printer driver one way or the other.


Michael.

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by Anonymous >> Fri, 8 Aug 2003 1:09:20 GMT

We have not done it yet, but are looking at using Hylafax.

As we alrady have email in-out working, just went looking for an email-fax solution.

www.hylafax.org

it's on Linux and free

Paul Mathews