Forums

by encos_dev >> Fri, 16 May 2003 1:37:28 GMT

Hi,

I must admit I'm not the developer working on our PDF solution, so I'm not 100% sure on the details. I think the US$10 license only allows the PDF printer driver to be installed on 1 computer (& it can't be shared). I got the following quote from the FAQ section of their web site:

"How can I set up PDF995 as a shared network printer?
This requires a customized license. Please contact us for details."

I don't believe you can set the PDF file name programmatically, which is a real pain - although I haven't looked into this myself.

Cheers,


Glen
Encos

by Glen Richards >> Tue, 22 Jul 2003 3:02:11 GMT

An update to the pdf writing thread.

I've discovered that you can get free(?) pdf writing by using a post script printer driver & then using "ghost script" to convert the post script file created by the driver to pdf format.

I've had a poke around in the pdf995 files & it looks like it's using ghost script in the background (!)

I'm 99% sure ghost script is free to distribute but I'll check this out. I'm going to try incorporating this into our JADE product now & I'll post anything I learn.

Cheers,


Glen
Encos

by allistar >> Wed, 23 Jul 2003 8:49:10 GMT

Hi Glen,
Thanks for the update. I am currently investigating PDF support from within our product and have looked at a lot of options. Cost is an important factor as we have over 300 sites so licencing a product at US$40 per site ends up costing us NZ$24,000.

We have decided to not use a solution that uses a pseudo printer driver over one with which we need to generate the PDF file ourselves (i.e. we tell the PDF .dll to add each field to the page). This is great as we get complete control over the pdf. We have found royalty free solutions that work like this for a one off fee of about US$500.

Note that we can now output reports to a printer, a fax, email as HTML, email as JPG, email as PNG (black and white or colour) and soon PDF. The ability in Jade to create an image (JPG/PNG) from a control allow us to do many powerful things.

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
*NEW* Simple web access to Jade at: www.silvermoon.co.nz/jhp.html ------------------------------------------------------------------

by Glen Richards >> Thu, 24 Jul 2003 2:56:18 GMT

Hi Allistar,

With the non-pseudo printer driver option you mentioned below can you send 'output' that would normally go to a printer to the pdf.dll you talk about? The whole reason we want to go with the pseudo printer driver option is so we don't have to re-factor our reporting logic.

cheers,

Glen

by allistar >> Thu, 24 Jul 2003 3:08:52 GMT

Hi Glen,
We can add anything to a PDF page that could be output to the printer (such as text, shapes, images) and a few things that can't be output to a printer (such a bookmarks, hyperlinks etc.)

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
*NEW* Simple web access to Jade at: www.silvermoon.co.nz/jhp.html ------------------------------------------------------------------