OT: skinflinter printing

[Bob Rasmussen]

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005, Brian K. White wrote:

> ...
> What I am able to do though, is print most plain text reports and forms to a
> file, and build an email file that has both text and scanned images (invoice
> followed by scanned, signed  proof of delivery, followed by another invoice,
> followed by more scanned docs...) and it all pops up right in the mail client.
> The images aren't even attachements. They actually are, but it's my choice by
> twiddling a mail header whether they show up as attachments or not in the mail
> client.
> ...
> I can't time creating the same pdf at the moment as I don't have a working
> ghostscript, which imagemagick uses to convert jpg tp pdf, but the last time I
> did it took 10 to 30 seconds to do one page on a new, idle, box. Also, it
> creates huge temp files in /usr/tmp, that on some boxes with small root
> filesystems, fills up the root fs and the job crashes and sometimes the temp
> files are left behind, and a full root fs is a big problem. Generating the
> html mail with base64 uses no space other then the output file itself and I
> decide where that is created and it is nowhere near the size of those IM temp
> files.

There is nothing inherently CPU-intensive about creating PDFs as compared
with creating HTML, with these possible caveats:

1. PDFs are often compressed. That takes time, but it results in smaller
output files.

2. PDFs are sometimes encrypted. That takes time.

3. There can be great variations in the efficiency with which graphics are
included, especially if format conversion must be done. And I don't think
a PDF allows an embedded PNG (which itself CAN be an efficient
vector-based graphic).

> ...
> This is NOT as good as printwizard or (presumably, I haven't tested it) the
> anzio web print object, because the web browser is doing the printing and by
> default it shrinks the image a little and adds a .5" or .75" margin on all
> sides, and adds a one line header and footer to every page.
> ...
> But it's good enough for a surprising number of cases, requires not a shred of
> setup or installation on the PC beyond the terminal emulator which is already
> there just to log in to the app anyways, and is of course all made of free
> stuff plus my own elbow grease on the server side. Rather than thinking
> "unprofessional printing from a web browser" think "professional sticking to a
> least common denominator that will work everywhere" Example: UPS on line
> shipping label printing. This doesn't require activex or javascript or any
> other plugin, but it does require a browser that understands CSS.
>
> Any time you get into these print-to-other-than-printer plans, you have to be
> aware of the potential scale-up problems. If it takes 10 seconds of 100% cpu
> ...
> That would be one reason to accept something like printwizard on the PC, Then
> the server would be doing almost 0 work to generate pwml right from filepro
> and the pc would do the work of rendering it into a pdf or to the windows-only
> printer driver. But that's only good for interactive immediate printing. You
> can't use that to have the server send out monthly statements from a cron job
> unless you want to get into setting up a special dedicated "printwizard
> server" windows box.

Brian, you have a pretty good grasp of Print Wizard for never having tried
it! I certainly don't dispute your point that the HTML-mail solution works
for some things. But let me point out a couple other nuances:

1. Different web browsers on different platforms may print differently.

2. Print Wizard is not restricted to interactive use. It can be run
completely "batch".

3. A Windows-based filePro machine can directly invoke Print Wizard.

4. A Unix/Linux-based filePro can use a Windows PC as a "Print Wizard
server" (as you mention). It may or may not be "dedicated". This is quite
a reasonable solution, and easy to set up. It could easily handle several
thousand print/PDF-email/fax jobs a day.

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
 company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
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