filepro & pdf files

[Bob Rasmussen]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Richard Hane wrote:

> Hi Bob,
>    
>   Sorry top posted because well I'm lazy.
>
>    I/we own a copy of Prin Wizard somewhere around here.  It is old as 
>   we haven't used it since we had SCO-Unix (at least 6-7 yrs ago).
>

Time for an update.
    
>   4 questions....
>    
>   1. From emails of yours and others as well as our own experience that 
>      PW works well with filepro but dows PW work with other windows 
>      programs?

In my previous answer to you, I referred to two levels of print output: 1) 
a stream of bytes, as from filePro; and 2) using the Windows printer API. 
Print Wizard (PW) is designed originally for method 1.

For method 2, used by true Windows programs, we can make it work, two 
ways:

a) In a Windows program, print to file, using a PCL-5 driver. Hand this 
file off to PW, which can understand PCL-5.

b) Set up a Windows printer driver to print via raw TCP/IP to "localhost". 
Run a Print Wizard Server Edition (PWSE) in the background (or as a 
Windows service), to listen on port 9100. It will receive the PCL from the 
printer driver and process it. For different outputs, use different port 
numbers.

>    
>   2. What is the current cost of a single user copy of PW?

Personal Edition is $99. It would not work for b) above; that would 
require Server Edition, which starts at $300.

>    
>   3. On a somewhat different topic, I am in the process of writing my 
>      own report writer in filepro that will automatically allow a user 
>      to send a defined output as either a pdf file, csv or dif file, 
>      text file, html file or to a specific printer.  Does PW work 
>      seamlessly? In short, I don't want the end user knowing how the 
>      document got there; just that it is there.

If you can operate PW with a command line, you can specify everything 
needed in command line parameters. Or, if you want to use the DLL, you can 
also contro its output. The difficulty comes in dealing with Windows 
programs.
    
>   4. Also, during the PDF creation file can PW request a unique name for the file?

Yes.

Our missing link is a Windows printer driver. I really need to write one 
of those...

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

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
 company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
          voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
            fax: (US) 503-624-0760
            web: http://www.anzio.com