PICK Hold entry (PEQS) to PDF?
JJCSR
get from peqs directly to WORD, then convert WORD to PDF, but I'd like
to know if there is any magic being performed to get directly from
PEQS to PDF.
Thanks, much.
Jim Cronin
Kittery Trading Post
Frank Winans
> Has anyone done any PDF output from PICK's hold entry (PEQS)? I can
> get from peqs directly to WORD, then convert WORD to PDF, but I'd like
> to know if there is any magic being performed to get directly from
> PEQS to PDF.
>
D3/NT,
D3/Linux,
D3/Player_Piano
?
I presume you want to omit the WORD step because it takes human intervention...
dbene...@gmail.com
Where I work, we have gotten PDF's generated directly for the printer.
The first part of the learning was tough getting all the PDF specs and
working with them.
After the learning was corrected, my cohort tells me that his general
program to accept the info from a Pick subroutine and create the PDF
takes about 300 lines of code.
I know this post is of little help, since there is no information here
on actually create the PDF's, but the internet is where to look to get
started. Then you just need to create the actual PDF file directly
from a Pick BASIC program.
Regards, Dale
JJCSR
Platform is D3/NT.
JJCSR
> on actually create the PDF's, but the internet is where to look to get
> started. Then you just need to create the actual PDF file directly
> from a Pick BASIC program.
>
> Regards, Dale
Thanks, Dale. I'll do some searching to see if anything surfaces.
Jim Cronin
Mark Fuller
Knowing that you are windows makes this relatively staright forward if D3
supports GDI printing (I Know that Reality does this (:-)
There are lots of products out there some free, some not that you can get to
behave as if they are a printer and print directly to them. I use a product
myself called CutePDF. There is a free version that will prompt for the name
of the pdf to generate or a chargeable one where you can control it
programatically. I think their website is www.cutepdf.com .
Regards
Mark Fuller
Northgate Information Solutions
www.northgate-is.com/reality
"JJCSR" <JCr...@ktp.com> wrote in message
news:ef613761-6937-4a59...@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Mark Brown
> "JJCSR" wrote> Has anyone done any PDF output from PICK's hold entry
> (PEQS)? I can
> > get from peqs directly to WORD, then convert WORD to PDF, but I'd like
> > to know if there is any magic being performed to get directly from
> > PEQS to PDF.
>
Jim,
I didn't write this program, and I don't have anyone's permission to share
it, so I can only show this line:
DATA "(c:/pdf/pdf/":SPACE(1):SYSTEM(22)
hold.entry = SYSTEM(20)
EXECUTE "copy peqs ":hold.entry
EXECUTE "!c:\printwiz30\printwiz.exe /q c:\pdf\pdf" : hold.entry
Apparently, the program copies the PEQS item into a dos folder c:\pdf\pdf\
and then fires off the PrintWiz PDF generator.
I understand PrintWiz is like $99 for the personal edition, and $300 for the
server version. I really know nothing about it except that I've seen it
work and work well.
We use it in our Web apps to generate print-out and then throw it up in a
new page. Then the user can print, email, save, etc at their discression.
HTH and HAND
--
Mark Brown
Sr. Software Engineer
Cancer Survivor
Drexel Management Svc Inc.
484-716-6154 (cell)
JJCSR
of your suggestions. The ultimate goal is to reduce the paper output
and still give the reader a viable solution to getting timely
information. PDF allows me to give the user an updatable form, as
well, from which I might want to extract data for other uses (E.G. re-
order quantities to be sent on to a purchase order).
Again, thanks to all.
Jim Cronin
Dir. MIS
Kittery Trading Post
dbene...@gmail.com
Jim, sorry for misleading you. I had my brain cell have a relapse of
a synapse, our guy put together a PostScript driver not a PDF driver.
Ooooppsss....
Sorry for mis-information.
Dale
jo...@mrpsystems.co.uk
Hello Jim
I use a product called txt2pdf (www.sanface.com).
This is a superb PDF program generator (Windows or Linux). The PRO
version deals with standard reporting from D3 where CHAR(12) are used
for controling the usual page breaks. I simply write the PEQS item
into either a WINDOWS or LINUX folder, then send the command to
generate the PDF.
Along with standard reports, I have also migrated my stationery
paperwork too (ie Purchase Orders, Invoices, Credits etc). txt2pdf
also allows full control of page layouts, drawing boxes, importing
JPEGS for logo's, background & foreground images, watermarks and the
like. This, again is very easy to do.
John
JJCSR
>
> This is a superb PDF program generator (Windows or Linux). The PRO
> version deals with standard reporting from D3 where CHAR(12) are used
> for controling the usual page breaks. I simply write the PEQS item
> into either a WINDOWS or LINUX folder, then send the command to
> generate the PDF.
>
> Along with standard reports, I have also migrated my stationery
> paperwork too (ie Purchase Orders, Invoices, Credits etc). txt2pdf
> also allows full control of page layouts, drawing boxes, importing
> JPEGS for logo's, background & foreground images, watermarks and the
> like. This, again is very easy to do.
>
> John
John:
Thanks, much, for the info. I'll check out that site.
Kevin Powick
> I use a product called txt2pdf (www.sanface.com).
It's a nice product, but you must purchase the PRO version if planning
to use it within a commercial entity. Their pricing is based on CPUs
(or sometimes cores). So it will cost you a minimum of $990.00 for a
single CPU
http://www.sanface.com/txt2pdfPRO.html#getting
--
Kevin Powick
jo...@mrpsystems.co.uk
Hello Kevin
You can negotiate with them on pricing
Cedric is quite amenable to lowering the price.
John
Ross Ferris
Jim,
As you have seen, ther are a number of "answers", with variations, to
your query, so I'll throw another twist in ...
If you start to convert PLAIN TEXT reports to PDF, and people LIKE
what they see (and they will!!), then pretty soon you may have
requests to "tart up" the output a bit (fixed font can become a little
boring to look at).
If your PEQS items started life as PCL, then you may already have some
"nicities" in place, like a few font styles, BOLD and maybe some line
drawings for boxes and some drop shadows.
If you get pushed to include some "nice" graphics, MORE font
variations & pretty colours (colors to you), then you may start to go
"splat" in terms of what you can do with a simple PEQS item. If you
find yourself approaching this point you might want to have a look at
out Visage.ReportServer product.
Reports & forms are designed by dragging & dropping elements from your
existing files onto a blank canvas. Fixed (eg: company logo) and
variable (different logo for different branches, products etc) images,
barcodes, thematic styling (fonts, forground/background colour etc),
Page X of Y numbering, reuseable templates and all of the other
features you would expect are available - and you can produce your
report or form from ANY environment (Green Screen, Visage or any other
GUI tool) with a simple EXECUTE statement.
A single report pass can generate output to a PDF file (and/or xls,
htm, tiff etc), fax or email recipients - heck if you want to be
REALLY cutting edge (RETRO?), you can even have it directed to a
physical printer if push comes to shove (even the GDI variety)
OWMUCHIZIT? Drop me a line & be pleasantly surprised! You can download
the manual here http://downloads.stamina.com.au/manuals/VisageReportsManual.pdf
Tony Gravagno
>Thanks to both Mark Fuller and Mark Brown. I will investigate both
>of your suggestions. The ultimate goal is to reduce the paper output
>and still give the reader a viable solution to getting timely
>information.
Jim, for this I would recommend the free PDFCreator:
http://www.pdfforge.org/
You will see that name (and other popular open source names)
referenced on disreputable sites that link off to all sorts of
interesting places. Do NOT get PDFCreator from anywhere except
pdfforge.org, or from SourceForge.net which hosts the project.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
I also second the option of using PrintWizard:
remove.pleaseNebula-RnD.com/products/printwizard.htm
This is one of the most under-rated offerings in our industry.
It has a lot of great features for a large variety of reporting needs.
It's not MV-centric, it works for all MV platforms as well as for any
other software you have.
The price is just too low for all of the things it does. I'll send
you a link to download the documentation on request.
>PDF allows me to give the user an updatable form, as
>well, from which I might want to extract data for other uses (E.G. re-
>order quantities to be sent on to a purchase order).
Whoe horsey!!! That last line there just changed the vision completely
from anything suggested so far. If you want updatable forms you are
not going to get them from any of the options presented thus far.
I recommend not using PDF for data entry. While it seems like an
elegant idea the concept is about 10 years old and it's no longer
necessary to focus on that as a primary option. See some demos I
wrote up back in the year 2000:
http://flashconnect.rainingdata.com/fcdemos/index.html
The PDF demo shows a PDF being used as a data entry form, and
FlashCONNECT passing the data back into D3. The connectivity pipe is
completely irrelevant, the concepts are all the same.
(The PDF demo looks fine but doesn't send data to the system. RD/TL
don't care about the demos (or selling software) and they have to be
told whenever they break the server that supports that marketing tool.
So if you have any interest in giving TigerLogic more money, despite
their best efforts to discourage you from doing so, contact Sales or
Support and ask them to turn on the server that supports those demos.)
Today I would do that demo but I would encourage using other tools as
graphical data entry forms. These include in no specific order:
1) Common Windows Forms = .NET thick client
2) Silverlight
3) ASP.NET/browser
4) Heck, even AutoHotKey SmartGUI or other freeware.
All of the above are completely free. Then there is:
5) Excel, Word, Outlook, Access, or InfoPath = Microsoft Office
... and a lot of other tools designed for data entry, or with varying
quality of data entry capabilities.
I can hear it now: "Hey, Excel is for spreadsheets, not data entry",
or "Hey, Word is for documents, not data entry", or "Hey, Outlook is
for email!"...
All of these programs are special-purpose wrappers built around a core
engine. But all of them also support forms development and
deployment. They even work inside one another with OLE Automation.
So you can open an email in Outlook that's formatted as HTML, with an
instance of Word in the page for data entry, populating an inserted
Excel spreadsheet... The tools you use depend on what you plan to do,
so recommending any given tool at this point is premature. But you do
have a lot of input options to you other than just PDF, and you can
still generate elegant looking PDF documents as output if you wish.
Please feel free to contact me at any time, Jim.
Regards,
Tony Gravagno
Nebula Research and Development
TG@ remove.pleaseNebula-RnD.com
Nebula R&D sells mv.NET and other Pick/MultiValue products worldwide,
and provides related development and training services
Gene
> On Jul 3, 2:52am, JJCSR <JCro...@ktp.com> wrote:
>> Has anyone done any PDF output from PICK's hold entry (PEQS)? I can
>> get from peqs directly to WORD, then convert WORD to PDF, but I'd like
>> to know if there is any magic being performed to get directly from
>> PEQS to PDF.
>>
>> Thanks, much.
>>
>> Jim Cronin
>> Kittery Trading Post
>
Jim, along with the other fine suggestions posted here, you might want
to try enscript and ps2pdf. That's what I'm currently using to generate
PDF documents. enscript will even make greybar for you. :)
g.
GlenB
Don't you mean the ps2pdf conversion wrapper that comes with
Ghostscript? There's actually three of them ps2pdf, ps2pdf12, and
ps2pdf13. I've used a2ps in the past for text->PostScript and it
converts PEQ entries quite nicely. I'll check out enscript too. My
favorite formatted document generators are still HTMLDOC and HTML2PS.
They both have their own features and lackings, so I choose according
to job and desired output. If anyone wants a2ps pointers, drop a note
here. It can be a little combersome to get the settings right.
GlenB
Gene
Yes, the tool I'm using is associated with GS.
Here's an example script I'm using:
/usr/local/bin/enscript -e -Z -B --non-printable-format=questionmark -h -H
--font=Courier-Bold7.5 --media=PDFLetter --ps-level=1 /tmp/$1 > /tmp/$1.ps
/usr/bin/ps2pdf /tmp/$1.ps /mnt/web/$1.pdf
/bin/rm /tmp/$1
/bin/rm /tmp/$1.ps
This is not a PEQS converter - this is what I use to convert report program
output to a PDF file that my client app picks up and shows to the user.
g.
JJCSR
Thanks to everyone who responded with suggestions on this subject. I
have been away from the office for a while, and unable to update this
posting. I have played with some of the offerings but have not had
sufficient time to play with some of the options incorporated in those
products.
Again, thank you one and all.