Here is my situation. I want to be able to print/write my reports to disk and attach them to an email. If I print to file using A Generic Text Printer option to file, it cuts off anything over 85 characters or so. Also, my documents sometimes have graphics on them. They print fine but I want to be able to put them into files and email them.

Any ideas or solutions would be helpful…..

thanks,

Bob Fernandes

Toledo & Associates, Inc.

[email protected]

Bob,

Can you get around your problem by changing properties for the Generic Text Printer? Like change to a larger page size? Or a higher pitch? My Generic Text Printer has such settings.

(I haven't tried it here, though. I've given up the Generic Text Printer a long time ago because it cannot handle 8-bit foreign letter characters. And today, for unknown reasons, it fails even more spectacularly.)

- Oystein -

Hi Bob,

I had a similar problem. I obtained 5D PDF Creator (Niknak). Cost about $100US when I purchased it. Installs as a print driver. Available from http://www.pdfzone.com/products/software/tool_NIKNAK.html.

Worked out to be the ideal solution. Creates PDF files from anything printed. PDF is ideal as an email attachment (being so widely accepted). Works perfectly as an adjunct to OIPI, all graphics, etc are presented. Also has lots of other uses for saving paper (eg print to PDF when testing). I can also now produce a report while prototyping and email a perfect replica (as a PDF file) to the client for approval.

You will need to standardise(AU) on naming conventions in order to automate the email process (limited scope within 5D for automating file output location / name).

Hope it helps

JC

Bob,

We had to do a project that matches your scenario exactly. We came up with three options:

1. Train the end users how to use the Ctrl-C (copy) method from the OIPI preview screen and paste this image into a Word document (or similar).

2. Create an HTML based version of the form/report.

3. Use the Acrobat Distiller to create a PDF file (which is basically the same as JC's suggestion).

Our recommendation and selected option was #3. This worked out very well. Since it installs as a printer driver we only needed to install the software and the client was ready to produce attachable files. The only additional work we had to do was create alternate versions of their form routines. Many of their forms are printed on letterhead. Therefore, for the PDF version, we created forms that printed the letterhead graphics. This has been a very easy and highly successful solution.

The copy/paste solution is the least expensive, but it requires too much work on the part of the end user to get the image to successfully appear in a document.

The HTML solution would have been a lot of work to get the forms to look as nice as the OIPI based forms. Also, you need to store the graphics on a website so your anchor tags can reference them. Finally, getting pagebreaks in HTML is a challenge.

Hope that helps. Call us if you want more details or come over if you like.

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

JC,

I downloaded the 5D utility and compared with the Acrobat Distiller. It is much less expensive and works rather quickly too. However, it only formats to Acrobat 3.0 and we had inconsistent results with white text on a black background. Often all we would see would be the black background.

[email protected]

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

Don ..

My take exactly .. very frustrating indeed.

Don Miller

C3 Inc.

Don,

I haven't had that. Although the use I've put it to has been limited to black text on white and bitmap graphics.

John

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