Re: Customized Front Page: Spool File to PDF

Sam

<verndor response>
If a commercial solution is an option, you might consider our iForms product - this can take your existing spooled files and convert to PDF - and because it is really almost a programming environment, you can add additional pages wherever you want. The turnaround on cost is, you don't have to do any changes to your existing applications.

Another possibility here is to take your existing PDFs and use iForms to generate just the front page from the spooled file data, then merge them - we have a PDF to Tiff Utilities product, and iForms might have a PDF merge, too - I forget!

Look for iForms on our website www.rjssoftware.com if interested, or call us toll-free at 888.RJS.SOFT.
</verndor response>

Regards
Vern

On 7/10/2011 8:01 PM, Sam_L wrote:

We have a lot of legacy reports that we convert to PDFs using the
InfoPrint Server and then publish to our Intranet.

There is a goal to add a report specific front page to the reports so
that when they end up on tablets (e.g., think iPad) it is easier to see
which report is which from the icon and/or looking at the front page.

I’m looking for ideas on how to add a customized front page without
changing each program.

I don't think we will need any graphics, but probably will need some
larger fonts.

Virtually all the programs use O-Specs. We can get control of all the
spool files as they get moved from their original OUTQ to the InfoPrint
OUTQ.

I have thought of three possible approaches to add a page:

1) Using APIs to duplicate the spool file, inserting a page at the
beginning. We’re not talking massive reports, so I don’t think overhead
will be an issue.

2) A customized separator page exit. I’ve never done this and I’m not
sure how much you can do in such an exit, but it would certainly have to
handle varying report widths, CPI and LPI. I’m not sure how this would
play with the InfoPrint server, where we already have an exit in place
to create a sensible PDF name.

3) Trying to insert a page inside our InfoPrint exit, though I don’t
recall seeing anything in the documentation that suggested you could do
this.

I’d appreciate any thoughts you have.

Thanks, Sam