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Welcome to PDF Converter component
PDF converter is a filter component that enables batch conversion of files from any application to a PDF
format. The component receives input from any file type and converts it to a searchable or not
searchable PDF document depending on the input file specifics.
The PDF Converter component installs Print Driver just like any standard printer. Using the PDF
Converter component on the server allows the conversion to be performed centrally without a need to
install PDF converter print driver on each desktop or device. The native or file associated application
running on the server that opens the input file must support the print verb .You can then use PDF
converter component to receive files from a source component such as POP3email, Digital Sender, MFP
or Poll Directory and print it into a PDF file format. Any file type, Raster or Vector files can be converted
as long as the corresponding application is installed centrally.
Feature highlights
•
The component allows you to generate a PDF file with a user defined compatibility mode.
The PDF
files generated by this component can be printed to a physical printer by applications that are
capable of viewing standard PDF files.
•
The component supports activation by a custom condition
specified as an expression that is
interpreted as a Boolean value.
•
Concatenation of multiple files into a single PDF file is supported.
•
PDF documents can be optimized for downloading through the web, also known as PDF
Linearization.
•
Three image compression algorithms
are available: Default, 256 Color, and JPEG compression. Use
default algorithm if the number of colors does not exceed 256.
•
You can configure physical margins
in millimeters.
•
Font embedding
option allows you to define which fonts to embed.
•
You can decrease document size for archival or transmission purposes by using colors conversion to
the gray scale
or downsampling high resolution images
.
•
Support for several paper sizes
, resolution
, and orientation
is available.
•
You can remove the original
document(s)
from the process after the conversion takes place, if the
original documents have no use after the conversion has been completed.
•
You can instruct the component to fail the current job
within the process if PDF conversion fails to
properly convert the documents into PDF.
•
The component allows multi-language support
for converting characters that are not in the Western-
European and US character sets, e.g. Eastern-European and Far-Eastern characters.
•
You can instruct the component to generate XMP
metadata, i.e. the PDF document properties
like
Author, Creator, etc. in XMP form.
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•
Automatic conversion to hyperlinks
option allows you to print the external references contained in the text
of the generated document in the form of hyperlinks.
•
The document security options
such as encryption level
, passwords
, and permissions
can be
configured.
•
You can configure automatic PDF bookmarks generation
settings.
•
You can instruct the component to convert the
RGB colors of the generated document to
CMYK color
space
.
•
A reasonable timeout value
can be set for the PDF conversion process.
•
You can simulate
PostScript language
to improve compatibility with some applications, like Office XP,
which read from printer device to produce semi-transparent output.
•
You can configure the settings for printing watermarks
on the pages of the generated document.
Using
PDF
Converter in a process
The following provides examples of common usage scenarios:
•
An enterprise where CAD documents need to be viewed by all users. Using this component within
the server, removes the necessity of having the CAD application installed on each and every
desktop just to view the CAD files. Instead, with the CAD application installed centrally, the
conversion of the CAD file occurs on the server. Each user may then view the converted PDF file
via a PDF Reader application.
•
Whenever there is a need to send documents to an external organization and the external entity
may not be running the application associated with the documents. Conversion of documents to
PDF will remove environment specific requirements as PDF Readers may be obtained freely.
•
Receive Fax from fax-server, convert to PDFfile(s), and store for archival purposes.
•
Read files from a directory in batch-mode and convert into PDF files.
•
A company requiring all project data to be converted and maintained into an archived database,
can setup a designated POP3 Email address where a process can read the email and
attachment(s) to PDF and store them into a directory. In this situation, employees are able to
archive documents, simply by sending email with attachment into the designated POP3 Email
account and the process automatically reads the POP3 Email and converts the attachment to PDF
for storage into archival system.
•
The MFP devices can be configured with an archive button, so that by pressing this button,
images are scanned in, and sent to PDF Converter component for conversion. The PDF formatted
files are archived into a designated directory.
General tab
Use the options in this tab to activate PDF Converter and set the general attributes of the component.
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Conditional activation
Use the Activate
combo box to enable the component. You can use one of the following alternatives:
•
Select
Yes
to enable t
he component
.
•
Select
No
to disable the component. In this case the component won't perform any actions during files
processing.
•
Enter a custom condition. The condition should be specified in the form of the expression which is
interpreted as common Boolean value:
TRUE
,
YES
,
ON
,
1
or
FALSE
,
NO
,
OFF
,
0
. The expression has
C-like
syntax
and is evaluated
based on operators
and type of operands. The expression is case-insensitive. If you
enter invalid condition, the component becomes inactive by default.
Examples of simple expressions:
o
Yes
- the component is always active.
o
NO
- the component is never active.
o
~
CMP::
SomeRrt~
- the component is active if some component replaced its
RRT
~
CMP
::
SomeRrt~
with
one of: TRUE, YES, ON, 1.
Examples of complex expressions:
o
~
FRO::
PagesNumber~ < 50
- the component is active if number of pages in the input file of the
ABBYY
OCR component is less than 50.
o
"
Y" + "
e" + "S"
- the component is always active, because the result of this expression is string "
YeS
". This
string is interpreted as Boolean YES (TRUE).
o
("~
PCF::
FileName~" >="a") & ("~
PCF::
FileName~" < "
e")
- the component is active if input file name
starts from "a", "b", "
c
" or "
d
" (case-sensitive).
Note:
When you enter one of the Boolean constants FALSE
E
, NO
O
, OFF
F
, 0
0
, all the options in the
component configuration become disabled. If you enter any other expression which is
interpreted as Boolean NO (FALSE) or invalid condition, the component configuration allows
you to manipulate the settings, but the component will become inactive in runtime.
Operators
Following operators can be used in the expression syntax (in ascending order of priority):
Symbol
Description
Result type
Operands type
?:
Conditional select same as
operand
1- Boolean; 2,3-
-
any
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|
Logical OR
Boolean
Boolean
&
Logical AND
Boolean
Boolean
=
Equal to
Boolean
any
==
Equal to
Boolean
any
!=
Not Equal to
Boolean
any
>
Greater than
Boolean
Integer or String
<
Less than
Boolean
Integer or String
>=
Greater or equal
to
Boolean
Integer or String
<=
Less or equal to
Boolean
Integer or String
+
Add (or
concatenate)
same as
operands
Integer or String
-
Subtract
Integer
Integer
*
Multiply
Integer
Integer
/
Divide
Integer
Integer
!
Logical NOT
Boolean
Boolean
+
Plus (unary)
Integer
Integer
-
Minus (unary)
Integer
Integer
( expression )
Parentheses
same as
operand
any
Expression syntax
The expression syntax is close to the C language expressions. The main difference is that the expressions
operate with Boolean type, so there is no need to distinguish operations "&&" and "&", "||" and "|",
etc. Other differences are related to restrictions, for example, there are no assignment operations. The
operations priority is the same as in C language.
Complete syntax formal definition follows:
selector_expression ::-
logic_expression ? logic_expression : selector_expression
logic_expression
logic_expression ::-
logic_expression | logic_expression_and
logic_expression_and
logic_expression_and ::-
logic_expression_and & logic_expression_cmp
logic_expression_cmp
logic_expression_cmp ::-
logic_expression_cmpoperation_cmpmath_expression
math_expression
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math_expression ::-
math_expressionoperation_addmath_expression_mul
math_expression_mul
math_expression_mul ::-
math_expression_muloperation_mulunary_expression
unary_expression
unary_expression ::-
unary_operatorunary_expression
( expression )
constant
identifier
operation_cmp ::-
=
==
!=
>
<
>=
<=
operation_add ::-
+
-
operation_mul ::-
*
/
unary_operation ::-
+
-
!
constant ::-
integer_constant // regular expression: [0123456789]+
string constant // regular expression: ".*"
boolean constant // case insensitive: TRUE, FALSE, ON,
// case insensitive: YES, NO, OFF
identifier ::- [a-zA-Z_][0-9a-zA-Z_]*
Expression evaluation
Expression evaluation is based on operators
and type of operands. All binary operators take operands of
the same type. The result type of arithmetic operations is the same as the operands type. The result
type of comparison and logic operations is Boolean.
Arithmetic operations
Binary operation "+" supports integer and string operands types only. For string operands the resulting
string value is a concatenation of two operands.
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Binary operations "-", "*" and "/" support integer operands only.
Unary operations "+" and "-" support integer operands only. Operation "+" is a complementary for
operation "-" and does nothing over its operand. The purpose of this operation is expression like this:
(~CMP::rrt~ + 0). If a component replaces RRT ~CMP::rrt~ with some numeric value, the result of this
expression will be this value. If a component replaces this RRT with an empty string then the expression
will be still valid and the result of this expression will be 0.
Result of an integer arithmetic operation must fit into the 32-bit signed range: from -2147483648 to
2147483647.
Logic (Boolean) operations
Unary operation "!" (NOT) supports Boolean operand only. The resulting Boolean value is inverted
operand.
Binary operations "&" (AND) and "|" (OR) support Boolean operands only. The resulting Boolean value is
a conjunction (disjunction) of the operands. First (left) operand is evaluated before the second (right)
one. If result of the first operand of AND operation is false then second one is not evaluated, and result
of the expression is false. If result of the first operand of OR operation is true then second one is not
evaluated, and result of the expression is true.
Particularly this means that non-evaluated operand's subexpression can contain semantic errors, e.g.
types mismatch, unknown identifiers, etc., but the result of the operation will be evaluated correctly.
Comparison operations
Binary operations "=", "==" and "!=" (not equal) support string, integer and Boolean operands.
Operation "=" is equivalent to "==" for integer and Boolean operands. For string operands operation "="
compares operands case-insensitively while operation "==" is case-sensitive.
Binary operations "<=", ">=", "<" and ">" support string and integer operands only. Strings are compared
in case-sensitive manner.
Result type of all comparison operations is Boolean.
Conditional selection operation
Exp_condition ? exp_result1 : exp_result2
Ternary operation from the C language "? :" with the only difference: this implementation does not
require that result operands type will be same. If exp_condition is true, than exp_result1 is evaluated
(exp_result2 is not evaluated); if exp_condition is false, than exp_result2 is evaluated (exp_result1 is not
evaluated).
Constants
Integer constant must be decimal numeric value from 0 to 2147483647 (inclusive), i.e. it must fit to the
32-bit signed range. Unary operator "-" should be used to make negative integer value from the positive
integer constant.
String constant must begin and end with double quotes (") character. Special characters inside of string
body must be "escaped" with the backslash (\) character. Following escape sequences are valid inside of
string constants: \" (quote), \\ (backslash), \t (tab), \v (vertical tab), \r (carriage return), \n (new line).
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Boolean constant must be one of the following: ON, YES, TRUE for true and OFF, NO, FALSE for false.
These constants are case-insensitive.
Examples:
•
"YES" - is a string constant.
•
YES - is a Boolean constant.
•
"10" - is a string constant
•
10 - is an integer constant.
•
Expression (10 > 9) is true.
•
Expression ("10" > "9") is false.
•
Expression ("YES"!= TRUE) is invalid, since it compares operands of different types (string against
Boolean).
•
Expression (FALSE == OFF) is true since both Boolean constants FALSE and OFF have same
Boolean value false.
•
Expression (FALSE == 0) is invalid since Boolean is compared against integer.
•
Expression (FALSE == ((3 + 4) != 0)) is false.
Identifiers
Only Boolean constants are supported. Other identifiers are undefined. For example, expression
("ABCD" == ABCD) is invalid, since identifier ABCD is undefined.
Remove original document(s) after PDF conversion
PDF Converter can be setup to destroy originals after conversion to PDF has been completed. Selecting
the Remove original
document(s) after
PDF conversion
check box will remove the original document(s)
from the process after the conversion takes place.
Use this option only if the original documents have no use after the conversion has been completed.
Remember that if you use this option, the next component(s) within this process do not see the original
file, they will only see the converted PDF file.
When this check box is selected:
•
If the process is successful, the original document will be removed.
•
If the process fails to convert to PDF, the original documents will follow the "on failure" file
options that have been defined.
Concatenate the generated PDF document(s)
A job may consist of several files. Select this option to concatenate the converted files into one PDF file.
For example if 5 JPEG files are scanned in from an MFP device, this option will generate a single PDF file
for all 5 images. This option will only concatenate the PDF files that are generated through the PDF
converter, as a result existing PDF files will be skipped.
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Fail job if PDF conversion is unsuccessful
Select this check box to stop the current job from successfully completing if the PDF conversion has
failed. If this option is not selected, the failure to convert does not stop the current job to proceed
through the process. Setting this option will fail the current job within the process if PDF conversion fails
to properly convert the documents into PDF.
All failed jobs are marked as rejected and are processed according to "rejected" job process settings.
Paper size
Enter the default paper size for new documents. All standard paper sizes supported by Windows are also
supported by the PDF Converter. The value entered here is only the default for new documents. You can
use one or several available RRTs in this field.
•
The default value for the paper size depends on the Windows settings and corresponds to the
locale-specific standard paper size.
•
If a standard paper size is selected, the Width
and the Length
fields are disabled and display
physical paper dimensions in millimeters.
•
If you select Custom
paper size option, the Width
and the Length
fields become enabled.
Note:
If you select Custom
paper size option and process TIFF document with a different Custom
Paper Size width and length, the output PDF documents will not take the custom setting. This is
due to a security issue with Windows 2000 SP 4. In order to get Paper Size customized, the user
needs to start the service with a local administrator account.
Some applications, e.g. MS Word, sometimes ignore the specified page size settings and set
another page format. Therefore it is recommended to verify that the generated PDF files have
the correct format.
Width
Enter width of the paper that you want to use for your documents, in millimeters. This field is enabled
only when "Custom" is selected in the Paper size
box or this box contains an RRT. This field allows
entering of decimal numbers with 0.1 precision. Minimal allowed value is 0.1mm.
Note:
Maximum allowed value is 5000.0 mm according to the printer driver restriction. If you enter
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