As well as spooled-file conversion to PDF files,
PDFing
can perform a
number of other conversions. Once created, the output-files can be
variously enhanced,
before being sent by email, saved to disk and/or printed.
When running PDFing without a
license,
please be aware that many of the features, as listed below,
will have some arbitrary limitations.
PDFing runs on a Windows PC and uses
the server (Line Printer Daemon)
side
of the LPR/LPD protocol to
receive
spooled-files from OS400.
The Line Printer Requester / Line Printer Daemon protocol
is part of the
TCP/IP protocols suite.
This protocol
is defined by the Internet standard document
RFC1179.
Because PDFing is multi-threaded
it can receive spooled files from multiple OS400 jobs on multiple
machines concurrently.
PDFing runs on all of the
versions of
Microsoft
Windows® except
95,
98 and
NT4.
The only requirement is a TCP/IP connection to OS400.
OS400 is the operating system for
IBM
iSeries® and AS400® machines.
V3R1
and later versions of OS400
includes all the necessary software for communicating with remote
print-servers
over TCP/IP networks.
PDFing emulates a remote printer and exploits these OS400 capabilities.
PDFing does
not require the installation
of any OS400 objects,
the only requirement is a TCP/IP connection from OS400 to the Windows
system that is running PDFing.
OS400 includes commands
STRRMTWTR
and
SNDTCPSPLF
that send spooled-files to PDFing using the client (Line Printer
Requester) side
of the LPR/LPD protocol.
The Line Printer Requester / Line Printer Daemon protocol
is part of the
TCP/IP protocols suite.
This protocol
is defined by the Internet standard document
RFC1179.
Please note that OS400 can
only send LPR
requests to port
515.
The LPR standard is extended by OS400 so that spooled-file attributes
may be sent to
PDFing as well as the text to be converted. You may use native OS400
commands to
create spooled-files with certain
attribute
values that
can
override the parameters that control
how PDFing will process
this spooled-file.
OS400 SCS (SNA Character Stream) printer device files support the
creation of
spooled-files that can be printed on simple line printers. SCS
spooled-files
should
not be
transformed.
PDFing can convert *SCS spooled-files to the following formats:
PDFing includes EBCDIC to ASCII translation-tables for many
different
national
languages
. You can use the
[System]
page of the configuration program to select the translation-table
that you require.
Conversion to PDF will operate without limitations only when you
purchase
a license
for the base product. Otherwise PDF files converted from
*SCS contain a "reminder" image at the bottom of each page.
For an example file, please see
scs.pdf
When converting
*SCS data-streams to PDF,
PDFing uses:
PdfLib
v4.0.2 by Thomas Merz.
OS400 AFPDS (Advanced Function Printing Data Stream) printer device
files support
the creation of spooled-files containing graphical images, bar codes
and multiple fonts. AFPDS spooled-files sent to PDFing must first
be transformed by the OS400
host print transform
function.
PDFing can convert *AFPDS spooled-files into PDF and other formats.
Conversion to PDF will operate without limitations only when you
purchase
a license
for the base product. Otherwise PDF files converted from
*AFPDS contain only the first five pages of the spooled-file. For an
example file, please see
afpds.pdf
When converting
*AFPDS data-streams to
PDF, PDFing uses:
Pcl2Pdf
by Visual Software.
OS400 *USERASCII printer device files support the creation of
spooled-files that contain any printable data-stream. If the
data-stream
conforms to PCL5 (Hewlett-Packard Printer
Control Language)
then PDFing can convert it to PDF. This type of spooled-file is
produced by many form-creation products
for iSeries/A400, including Optio, Ezprint,
Formsmagic and Formsprint.
PDFing can convert *USERASCII/PCL spooled-files into PDF and other
formats.
Conversion to PDF will operate without limitations only when you
purchase
a license
for the base product. Otherwise PDF files converted from
*USERASCII contain only the first five pages of the spooled-file.
OS400 provides this function which may be used to convert
*AFPDS and
*SCS
spooled-files to Hewlett Packard® Printer Control Language
(PCL).
You can select this function by
configuring
an output-queue
with the parameter values
TRANSFORM(*YES)
MFRTYPMDL(*HP4).
You may specify other manufacturer type and models such as
MFRTYPMDL(*HP5SI),
or you can create your own
workstation
customisation objects.
The data stream ouput from the transform must be in Hewlett Packard
Printer Control
Language (PCL) at the level supported by LaserJet printers PCL4, PCL5
and PCL5e.
When using PDFing, *AFPDS spooled-files must
be transformed to PCL. *SCS spooled-files
should not be transformed. Some of the
advanced functions of PDFing
can only be applied to un-transformed spooled-files and the transform
process
wastes OS400 and Windows resources.
Please note that the transform process removes all the spooled-file
attributes,
excepting
user-defined-text, file-name and user-name. However, we
freely supply the
CL source for a simple
transform
exit-program
and if you
configure
your
OS400 output-queue
to reference this exit-program, then the spooled-file will be
transformed when required
but all attributes will be sent with the spooled-file text. In certain
cases where "complex" *AFPDS spooled-files cannot be converted (see
our
F.A.Q.), we can supply an "advanced" transform-exit program that can convert such spooled-files.
Some *AFPDS spooled-files which contain "soft-fonts" may produce PDF
files
which are not completely readable. This is because some fonts supplied
by OS400 are encoded
in EBCDIC rather than ASCII. To make the text readable, go to the
[Convert]
page of
the configuration program and enter
the text:
-RA in
the control labelled
"PCL Parameters". This parameter value causes the offending text
characters to be rendered as readable bit-maps.You can find out more
about this
and other *AFPDS problems on our
F.A.Q.
page.
PDFing can automatically save each newly-created PDF file to a specfied
directory
anywhere within the Windows file-system, using either
drive:directory
or
UNC
naming conventions.
You may also specify the name of the file to be saved. Where
a file of this name already exists, you can specify that PDFing
should rename the existing file before replacing it or, alternatively,
re-name the file to be saved by assigning a unique numeric suffix to
the name.
PDFing can
(optioinally) print the PDF files it produces. Please see our
Printing
in PDFing
for more details.
PDFing can automatically send each converted file as an
attachment of
an email addressed to specified recipients.
PDFing can
communicate with
any mail server that
complies with the SMTP internet standard.
You may specify the name of the file that is attached
or send emails that contain only the names and (URL) locations
of any files saved to disk. The
recipient address(es) for any particular spooled-file can be set using the
EMA= tag.
SMTP or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
is part of the
TCP/IP protocols suite.
This protocol
is defined by Internet standard
RFC821
and extended by
standard
RFC2554
to support authenticated
conections.
PDFing implements the client side of this protocol which is
used to send email messages to email server software. Almost all
servers
(including Lotus Notes and MS Exchange) can receive and relay messages
conforming to this standard.
PDF documents are attached to SMTP email messages in the format
described by the
MIME Internet standard
RFC1521
and can be read by all modern email client programs, such as MS
Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird,
etc.
PDFing supports
ESMTP
authentication ( for
those servers
that require its clients to supply a user-name and password) and may
use
SSL
(secure sockets layer) to
encrypt the connection between PDFing and the server.
When PDFing converts a spooled-file, the processing parameters are
defined by
the
default
configuration
for PDFing.
You can also create alternative configuration files containing
processing
parameters which override the default parameters, these files
are called
"markups". PDFing can
automatically select a markup depending on a spooled-file's attributes or you can select a markup using the
EDM= tag.
The LPR standard is extended by OS400 so that spooled-file attributes
may be sent to
PDFing as well as the text to be converted. You may also use native OS400
commands to
create spooled-files with certain
attribute
values that
can
override the parameters that control
how PDFing will process
this spooled-file.
The appearance of an output PDF can be enhanced by
the addition of (up to 24) graphic images.You can position therse
images on the page and set conditions for
the appearance of these images so that they only appear on particular
pages of a document.
The appearance of an ouput PDF can be enhanced by overlaying (up to 24) page(s) from specified PDF files. You can
set conditions for
the appearance of these overlay pages so that they only appear on
particular
pages of a document. The same page of the markup form also allows the
specification of additional attachments to email.
The appearance of a newly created PDF can be enhanced by selecting a
different font family, appearance and color for selected regions
of spooled-file text. You may re-position the selected text and
and draw (colored) outlines around it. Up to 20 regions of
text may be selected.
Please note, only "un-transformed" *SCS spooled-files can be enhanced
in this way.
The text contents of spooled-files can be analysed to determine where a
single spooled-file
is to be
"burst"
or split
into multiple output
files. Each output-file can then be sent to a different destinations.
Destinations
can be directly extracted from the text, or a code extracted from the
text
can be used to select destination(s) from a
mail-list.
For example
a spoooled-file containing multiple invoices can be burst by
invoice-number and then each of these invoices can be addressed using
the customer-number to look up the corresponding address(es) in a
mail-list.
The text contents of spooled-files can
be
selected
and (optionally)
replaced
and used to populate the
special
characters
&1,
&2...
&20
and to select destinations as described above.
Title, Subject, Author and keywords can now be written as
the "External file properties" of a file. These values appear
on the "Summary" tab of the Properties display and in the
appropriate columns of windows explorer. Please note that
these file properties are not included when a file
is sent
via email.
The
[Convert]
page of the configuration
and markup programs contains a new control labelled "Add
file-properties"
(just below the "Keywords" control), this must be set to YES.
You can protect newly-created PDF files from un-authorised operations
by encrypting the PDF file. You must specify one or both of the
"owner" and "user" passwords, "user"is required
to open the PDF file and "owner" allows operations such as changing
or printing an opened PDF.
PDF encryption will operate without limitations only when you
purchase
a license
for both the base product and the additional NT Service components.
Otherwise the password(s) you specify are ignored and the password
"Easy"
is used instead.
You can apply a "digital-signature" to newly-created PDF files
The [Security] page of the configuration and markup programs
contains new controls for specifying digital-signing parameters.
Please see our
digital-signature
documentation
for details about configuration and licensing.
The text contents of spooled-files can be analysed
to determine both where PDF book-marks should be be added and the text
selected for each bookmark.
PDFing can delay sending a PDF until all the spooled-files
in a set have been received and converted. It can
then (optionally) combine all the spooled-files in this set into
one PDF document.
Each spooled-file in the set of spooled-files must have
a "send to destination" value specified as: *MERGE*sssss,
where sssssss specifies the set name. The last spooled-file
of a set must also specify an email address (or addresses)
as the "notify address" value. When the last spooled-file
of the set is received, all the spooled-files saved for this
set, will be merged into a single PDF document. This merged
PDF may be attached to an email sent to the "notify address",
saved to the disk location specified in the "notify address"
and/or printed.
PDFing can delay sending files until all the
spooled-files in a set have been received and converted.
It then sends a single e-mail, attaching all the files in
this set.
Each spooled-file in the set of spooled-files must have
a "send to destination" value specified as: *SET*sssss,
where sssssss specifies the set name. The last spooled-file
of a set must also specify an email address (or addresses)
as the "notify address" value. When the last spooled-file
of the set is received, all the spooled-files saved for this
set, will be attached to an email sent to the "notify address".
PDFing can create multiple copies of a single spooled-file, so that
each copy can be processed in a different way to the
original.
The
[Destination]
page of the markup program
contains a control labelled "Clone tags"
where "cloning" instructions can be specified.
The Portable Document Format (PDF) specification created by
Adobe
Incorporated.
is one of the most widely used standards for electronic
document interchange. A PDF document always displays and prints
correctly
on any device and, unlike a page of HTML, will exactly reproduce the
original
fonts and pagination.
Document exchange using PDF is supported on many
different platforms (Unix, Linux, Android, Apple OS/9, Apple OS/X, iOs
and all
versions of Windows).
The Adobe Acrobat® Reader program which displays and prints
PDF documents on these platforms is free from Adobe.
"Plug-in" software is also available for most popular e-mail clients
and browsers.
You may encrypt the contents of a PDF to password-protect it against
inappropriate use.
A PDF document also includes information about the author and creation
date
which can be used to check the validity of the data in the document.
For
further information about PDF, please see "The Portable Document
Format"
specification created by:
Adobe
Incorporated.
PDFing can extract the text lines from spooled-files and save them to a
file.
You can opt to include or exclude form-feed characters and select the
file-extension
as *.txt or *.asc
Conversion to Ascii Text will operate without limitations only when you
purchase
a license
for the base product. Otherwise text files contain only the first
ten pages of the spooled-file.
When processing *AFPDS spooled-files which contain multiple fonts, some
text may be
unreadable. This is because some fonts supplied by OS400 are encoded in
EBCDIC rather
than ASCII.
The RTF specification published by Microsoft allows for the creation of
formatted documents that can be imported into most word-processing
programs.
PDFing can extract the text lines from spooled-files
and save them as an RTF file. As far as possible, PDFing will preserve
font-sizes,
indentations etc, in such a way that original spooled-file formatting
is preserved.
Conversion to RTF will operate without limitations only when you
purchase
a license
for the base product. Otherwise text files contain only the first
ten pages of the spooled-file.
Conversion to Excel requires you to create an "example" Excel file
which defines how a spooled-file's content is to be inserted into a
spreadsheet.
Please see our
L4X
page for
a detailed explanation of the process.
Conversion to Excel will operate without limitations only when you
purchase
a license
for both the base product and the additional NT Service components.
Otherwise a comment is always added to the spreadsheet.
PDFing can archive any newly-created files within a single zip file
You may specify a password to protect the contents of
the zip archive. The zip-archive is then saved or emailed instead
of the component files.
PDFing cannot compromise the security of your OS400, your systems will
only
ever send it data, PDFing itself will
never initiate any OS400
transaction, it can only acknowledge the data sent by OS400 remote
writer jobs and LPR.
The LPR/LPD Internet protocols that OS400 implements require that
PDFing only send positive
or negative acknowledgments as data is received. Your system is thus
protected against
problems with PDFing, the worst that might happen is that OS400 remote
writers will
end abnormally.
You can prove this for yourself by using the OS400 command
NETSTAT *CNN.
This will show a list of active TCP/IP
connections. You will never see the "remote address" of the PC running
PDFing until
an OS400 remote writer writes a spooled-file to port 515.
In the same way, on the PC, you can execute
netstat
-a
from the MS-DOS command prompt to verify that PDFing is listening on
local port 515.
Execute
netstat -n
to show the active TCP/IP connections,
you will never see the PC make a connection to the "foreign" address of
your OS400
system until an OS400 remote writer sends a spooled-file.
There is a
theoretical limit of a million spooled-files per session but customers
have not
reported such extreme usage.
Bandwidth requirement varies by spooled-file type, *SCS requirements
are very low,
about 2K or less per page, but *AFPDS requirements (particularly with
graphic overlays)
can be (much) higher. Because *AFPDS requires OS400 to "transform" the
spooled-file to PCL,
this transformation will take additional time, depending on the power
and memory allocation
of your OS400 system. If converted spooled-files are to be sent as
emails, then additional
bandwidth will be required for connections to the email server. The
speed of this operation
depends entirely on your network and mail server software.
PDFing is multi-threaded and incoming spooled-files from each
connected OS400 writer are
processed concurrently.
Generally speaking, PDFing will spend a lot of time waiting for
requests from OS400 or
responses from the mail server, because PDFing is multi-threaded it can
use this waiting
time to convert, save and email received spooled-files.
PDFing Features