PDF Forms - a new approach (At least for us)

[Tom Podnar]

The files are generated from Template documents which can be created by a lot of different software, both Commercial and OpenSource (I happened to use CorelDRAW X7 to create these, because I own it and use it for other stuff), plus export files created by filePro. The fact that my company logo is a Corel vector object group helped make the PDFs really small for me.

In between is common OpenSource software and a couple of short but creative bash shell scripts.

Tom Podnar

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Rasmussen" <ras at anzio.com>
To: "Tom Podnar" <filepro at microlite.com>
Cc: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2014 6:06:54 PM
Subject: Re: PDF Forms - a new approach (At least for us)

I'm interested. Did you write a tool from scratch, or use an existing 
tool, or what?

On Mon, 13 Oct 2014, Tom Podnar wrote:

> Hi everyone.
>
> In 1996 or so we designed the BackupEDGE invoicing, licensing and activation form system to use filePro and a commercial form generator program and some customized print spooler scripts, which locked most of our forms into PCL overlays. This was the best solution for printing and faxing back then for us. Unfortunately, it kept us locked into the technology because the fax software company is no longer in business and some stuff was hardcoded into it. For PDFs, we've been printing and scanning-to-PDF for quite a while, resulting in large, ugly PDFs.
>
> I an effort to modernize, I needed to be able to switch fully to PDF, but I needed to first switch to a multi-platform PDF solution, then I can move to Linux when some licensing / activation software (written in C++) can be ported to Linux.
>
> The effort has resulted in a hybrid system that generates PDF forms that are better looking, smaller, easier to email, and more secure. The PDFs end up around 50K in size. You can email a lot of them.
>
> I know there are a million ways to skin this cat and everyone has a solution but I thought I'd show everyone some examples that come from simple filePro exports, and see if anyone has an interest in discussing them. The method can print forms from pretty much anything.
>
> Under Document Properties of the PDFs, see the Description and Security tabs for things that might be interesting.
>
>
> http://www.microlite.com/examples/Activation-XAR39902839.pdf
> http://www.microlite.com/examples/Invoice-42038.pdf
> http://www.microlite.com/examples/XAR39902839.pdf
>
> Cheers,
> Tom Podnar
> Microlite Corporation
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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)
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  street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc.
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