ways to save report to a file and easily open

James Bott · Post by **James Bott** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:42 pm

Enrico,

If you are referring to PDF Creator by Amyuni, the developer's license (the one that includes encryption and digital signature capability) is US$920. Kind of expensive.

http://www.amyuni.com/en/products/pdf_c ... ricing.php

Is that the one you are using?

James

Richard Chidiak · Post by **Richard Chidiak** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:52 pm

James Bott wrote:Richard,

The only product i have found at a "fairly reasonable price" for unlimited licensing is image2pdf that installs either a dll file or a executable run time. No special printer needs to be installed and the price is 250 Us dollars for unlimited users.
It seems the price for a developer license has gone up. The lowest price license I could find on their site is US$799.

http://www.verypdf.com/tif2pdf/tif2pdf.htm

James

James

The correct link

http://www.utilitywarrior.com/Image-to- ... ibrary.htm

Price still the same Unlimited Development $249.99

James Bott · Post by **James Bott** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:56 pm

Enrico,

OK, now I see from a previous message that you said PDFCreator was free, so I am assuming you meant this one on Source Forge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

The thing about Source Forge is that I never can find any documentation about the product like a simple description of it and it's features. It seems you have to install the application in the hope that the feature list will be in the install.

Is there a feature list somewhere?

It also seems to be a print driver and also requires Postscript. So, don't both of these have to be installed on every PC? How do you do this with a commercial application? Wouldn't it be a support headache since each time a new PC was added, users would be wanting to know why they can't create PDF documents.

James

James Bott · Post by **James Bott** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:10 pm

Richard,

http://www.utilitywarrior.com/Image-to- ... ibrary.htm

OK. Now doesn't this just put the EMF files into a PDF? Isn't a EMF file an image? Therefore you have a graphic image in a PDF rather than text, so the viewer (person) would not be able to copy text out of the PDF. Also, the PDF file size would be much larger than one containing text.

After thinking about this some more, it seems that we have to use a print driver to get report output (from TReport and/or TPrinter) from a FW app into a PDF file as text. But that is compilcated by all the installation and licensing issues previously discussed.

There is a PDF class but the reports have to be built using that class which is very tedious, so I don't think that is a good solution either.

James

Wed May 10, 2006 6:11 pm

James Bott wrote:Enrico,

OK, now I see from a previous message that you said PDFCreator was free, so I am assuming you meant this one on Source Forge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Exactly.

James Bott wrote:The thing about Source Forge is that I never can find any documentation about the product like a simple description of it and it's features. It seems you have to install the application in the hope that the feature list will be in the install.

Is there a feature list somewhere?

Yes, there is a help file that comes installed with the package.

James Bott wrote:It also seems to be a print driver and also requires Postscript. So, don't both of these have to be installed on every PC?

Yes, but it is a single auto-installing package.

James Bott wrote:How do you do this with a commercial application? Wouldn't it be a support headache since each time a new PC was added, users would be wanting to know why they can't create PDF documents.

If your user wants to open PDF documents then he will have to install Acrobat Reader, right? PDF is currently an external component and most users can install the needed software without problem.

EMG

Wed May 10, 2006 6:21 pm

James Bott wrote:After thinking about this some more, it seems that we have to use a print driver to get report output (from TReport and/or TPrinter) from a FW app into a PDF file as text. But that is compilcated by all the installation and licensing issues previously discussed.

There is a PDF class but the reports have to be built using that class which is very tedious, so I don't think that is a good solution either.

Right, but a virtual printer driver is the less-invasive alternative.

EMG

James Bott · Post by **James Bott** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:23 pm

Enrico,

PDF is currently an external component and most users can install the needed software without problem.

My point is that for a new application the customer has to install the app on a server, then the print driver on every PC. Six months later, when a new PC is added the print driver will not be on that PC. I quess you could have the app to look for the diver and if it doesn't find it to tell the user that it needs to be installed. Perhaps that could be done from an install program that was in the app's directory on the server. However, this still does add complication, but it may be the only solution (see my previous message about print drivers and FW reports). Ideally, it would be nice to have the PDF generation capability built into the app so print driver installation wouldn't be an issue. Then it would just be one install and that's it.

James

Richard Chidiak · Post by **Richard Chidiak** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:23 pm

James Bott wrote:Richard,

http://www.utilitywarrior.com/Image-to- ... ibrary.htm
OK. Now doesn't this just put the EMF files into a PDF? Isn't a EMF file an image? Therefore you have a graphic image in a PDF rather than text, so the viewer (person) would not be able to copy text out of the PDF. Also, the PDF file size would be much larger than one containing text.

After thinking about this some more, it seems that we have to use a print driver to get report output (from TReport and/or TPrinter) from a FW app into a PDF file as text. But that is compilcated by all the installation and licensing issues previously discussed.

There is a PDF class but the reports have to be built using that class which is very tedious, so I don't think that is a good solution either.

James

James

Basically the EMF file is converted to PDF through PNG conversion as far as i know (i may be wrong), this is due to compression factors.

Usually when we save a report to a PDF, we do not want users to retreive data from it and most users do not have the tool to retreive from pdf, they just have acrobat readers. Besides this, Image2pdf allows editing data fom a pdf just like accrobat does (accrobat distiller reader and writer). So there is no difference. You can also allow a lot of security issues. The size of a pdf produced with image2pdf is a bit higher that the one obtained with a true pdf printer. I tested it with big reports.
Of course printer driver is excellent but too problematic when you have too many users. You have to worry about their installation anyway.
We have replaced easypreview with fwh's preview + imge2pdf and shipped lots of updates . The result is excellent and we are quite happy about it.

Richard

Wed May 10, 2006 6:29 pm

James Bott wrote:Ideally, it would be nice to have the PDF generation capability built into the app so print driver installation wouldn't be an issue. Then it would just be one install and that's it.

I agree, but I can't see how to get this now.

EMG

James Bott · Post by **James Bott** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:32 pm

Richard,

Usually when we save a report to a PDF, we do not want users to retreive data from it...

OK, good in some situations.

...and most users do not have the tool to retreive from pdf, they just have acrobat readers.

Perhaps you didn't know you can copy from Acrobat Reader? There is a Text Select button on the toolbar (T with small dotted line box next to it). Select the text, then on the right-click menu select Copy.

James

Richard Chidiak · Post by **Richard Chidiak** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:32 pm

EnricoMaria wrote:
James Bott wrote:Enrico,

OK, now I see from a previous message that you said PDFCreator was free, so I am assuming you meant this one on Source Forge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Exactly.

James Bott wrote:The thing about Source Forge is that I never can find any documentation about the product like a simple description of it and it's features. It seems you have to install the application in the hope that the feature list will be in the install.

Is there a feature list somewhere?
Yes, there is a help file that comes installed with the package.

James Bott wrote:It also seems to be a print driver and also requires Postscript. So, don't both of these have to be installed on every PC?
Yes, but it is a single auto-installing package.

James Bott wrote:How do you do this with a commercial application? Wouldn't it be a support headache since each time a new PC was added, users would be wanting to know why they can't create PDF documents.
If your user wants to open PDF documents then he will have to install Acrobat Reader, right? PDF is currently an external component and most users can install the needed software without problem.

EMG

Enrico

Almost all new computers sold today (since quite a while) have acrobat reader built in. Most of users do not have to install it, they have it.

Richard

Richard Chidiak · Post by **Richard Chidiak** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:35 pm

James Bott wrote:Richard,

Usually when we save a report to a PDF, we do not want users to retreive data from it...
OK, good in some situations.

...and most users do not have the tool to retreive from pdf, they just have acrobat readers.
Perhaps you didn't know you can copy from Acrobat Reader? There is a Text Select button on the toolbar (T with small dotted line box next to it). Select the text, then on the right-click menu select Copy.

James

James

I know you can copy from Acrobat reader but this is an option you can forbid in any tool creating a pdf file.

Richard

James Bott · Post by **James Bott** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:40 pm

Richard,

I know you can copy from Acrobat reader but this is an option you can forbid in any tool creating a pdf file.

Understood. My point is that if you create PDFs from EMFs users cannot copy the text out even if you want to give them that capability.

James

Richard Chidiak · Post by **Richard Chidiak** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:49 pm

James Bott wrote:Richard,

I know you can copy from Acrobat reader but this is an option you can forbid in any tool creating a pdf file.
Understood. My point is that if you create PDFs from EMFs users cannot copy the text out even if you want to give them that capability.

James

Sure i agree, it is handled by the pdf like an image.

Richard

StefanHaupt · Post by **StefanHaupt** » Thu May 11, 2006 8:51 am

Richard Chidiak wrote:
I guess you should be very careful about licensing if you are distributing software. None of the above stated programs is "free for commercial use". You need a license for all of them. I have spent quite a time on the subject and emailed all the authors including cutepdf, pdf95 ...etc and many others. If you use inhouse, no problem. But we all sell "commercial software" outside

Richard

Richard,

I never distribute software I have no license to do it. If you can download from internet, the users can download itself, if they need it.
These additional tools are just mentioned in the docs and the users can decide what they want to do.

Stefan