Utility to create pdf from text data.

[Don Robinson]

Hello,   Note to moderator; This is my first post here and I'm not sure of my status. I've been a MV programmer for a long time, currently using Universe.   I'm looking for a program to create a pdf file from text that will run on an AIX & Universe system. Currently we generate tab delimited text and email or ftp it to the end user, ie company employees.   This works pretty well but now we want to send billing statements to customers. We want to make the data more secure since the customer could alter the text file. Converting it into a pdf might not be perfect but a big step in the right direction.   I have found free and paid programs for Windows and a few for Mac and Linux but none for AIX, 5.3.   One suggestion we had was DataVu from Rocket but it seems overkill, at least for now.   OT: Hi to Charlie Noah, glad to see you on here.   Thanks, Don Robinson Cincinnati, Ohio     Don Robinson 513-706-6149 (Cell) donr...@yahoo.com (work related) pcr...@yahoo.com (personal and ebay)

[Kevin Powick]

One other thing.  Since this list is viewable by anyone, including bots, it may be prudent for you to remove the detailed contact information at the bottom of future posts.

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Kevin Powick

[Kevin Powick]

Dammit  .  My original response to your post seems to have not made it though. 

Here are some links for AIX supported solutions that you may find useful.

http://www.sanface.com/txt2pdf.html/

http://www.fytek.com/products.php?pg=text2pdf/

http://www.epro-sys.com/text2pdfJC.htm/

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Kevin Powick

[Don Robinson]

Kevin,   Thanks! The phone #'s and emails were by accident - forgot to remove them.   Henceforth I will be more careful.   DonR --- On Wed, 2/15/12, Kevin Powick <kpo...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jan Van Schalkwyk]

Hi,

Also consider mvPDF

http://www.brianleach.co.uk/pages/mvpdf.htm 

We are using it successfully and can be applied for your initial requirements and you can also grow into the other more powerful features.

Cheers

[Charlie Noah]

Glad to see you, too, Don. I removed your contact info before replying. :^)

Charlie

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[Dick Thiot]

Don,

While it is not AIX based you may also want to consider Print Wizard from Anzio.  As I understand it you can install it on any Windows system in your network and the "defined" printer will appear as a network printer.  Besides output to PDF you can generate output to fax, email, autofit to page as well as do page overlays.  It is all controlled from within your MultiValue code.  I have installed Print Wizard at several sites and it works great.  In additional to working great, the staff at Anzio are very supportive.

Please let us know what you decide and how it goes.

Print Wizard: http://www.anzio.com/product/print-wizard

Dick

[Wols Lists]

On 15/02/12 17:52, Don Robinson wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Note to moderator;
> This is my first post here and I'm not sure of my status.
> I've been a MV programmer for a long time, currently using Universe.
>
> I'm looking for a program to create a pdf file from text that will run
> on an AIX & Universe system. Currently we generate tab delimited text
> and email or ftp it to the end user, ie company employees.
>
> This works pretty well but now we want to send billing statements to
> customers. We want to make the data more secure since the customer could
> alter the text file. Converting it into a pdf might not be perfect but a
> big step in the right direction.
>
> I have found free and paid programs for Windows and a few for Mac and
> Linux but none for AIX, 5.3.
>
> One suggestion we had was DataVu from Rocket but it seems overkill, at
> least for now.
>

Have you got Perl on your system? I'm looking to do the exact same thing
in Windows, but it looks like I'm going to use Perl plus a text2pdf
converter I got off CPAN.

Given that Perl is a nix thing, there's a good chance it's already on
your system.

Cheers,
Wol

[Art Martz]

On 02/15/2012 12:52 PM, Don Robinson wrote:

I'm looking for a program to create a pdf file from text that will run on an AIX & Universe system. Currently we generate tab delimited text and email or ftp it to the end user, ie company employees.

One approach I took, although it doesn't help with protecting the text data from modification, was I hired someone to paint a form in a pdf/fdf pair. Each data field was clear text in the fdf record.  I wrote a pgm to use the fdf as a template, and replace the data with whatever specific to the customer.  I then automatically emailed the pair to the customer as attachments.  When they double-clicked on the fdf doc, it automatically launched the pdf to display the fdf data, displaying a clean pdf with their data.
Art

[Tony Gravagno]

If we had a FAQ, the topic of PDFs would be in it. At the
following link you'll find links to prior discussions in CDP and
the U2 forum, and a link to my blog (two articles) which then
link to products and freeware.

http://www.pickwiki.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?CreatePDFDocuments

HTH
T

[Bob Rasmussen]

Note that it is possible to make a PDF that is protected from
modification. This involves giving it an "owner password" and also
setting its "permissions". Our Print Wizard product, which has already
been mentioned (thanks Dick), allows you to do this. It even allows
you to digitally certify the PDF, so the recipient knows it came from
you, and has not been changed. A great many other options are
possible, also.

...Bob

[Wols Lists]

On 15/02/12 22:12, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
> Note that it is possible to make a PDF that is protected from
> modification.

Note also, that there are plenty of programs out there that will ignore
the protection flag and allow you to edit it anyway.

Cheers,
Wol

[Bob Rasmussen]

Yes and no. There are different sets of conditions. Let me explain.

There are three fields in the creation of a PDF that affect this. There is
the permissions field which, let's say, is set to not allow modification.
Then there is a user password and an owner password.

If the user password is set, then the user must enter that password in
order to see the content of the PDF. If it's not set, then although the
contents is minimally encrypted, any reader program can display it and may
let you modify it, violating the permissions.

However, if the OWNER password is set, and the user does NOT know the
owner password, then the encrypted contents can be decoded to allow
reading, printing, etc., but the reader software can not modify the
contents, because it doesn't know how to reencrypt it. The best that it
can do is to "save as" a new PDF. A recipient of the new PDF could easily
see that it was not encrypted by the owner.

In summary, these programs let you modify a PDF, UNLESS it is owner
passworded. If that's not accurate, I'd like to be informed.

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

personal e-mail: r...@anzio.com
company e-mail: r...@anzio.com
voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
fax: (US) 503-624-0760
web: http://www.anzio.com
street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc.
10240 SW Nimbus, Suite L9
Portland, OR 97223 USA

[Wols Lists]

On 16/02/12 00:26, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Feb 2012, Wols Lists wrote:
>
>> > On 15/02/12 22:12, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
>>> > > Note that it is possible to make a PDF that is protected from
>>> > > modification.
>> >
>> > Note also, that there are plenty of programs out there that will ignore
>> > the protection flag and allow you to edit it anyway.
> Yes and no. There are different sets of conditions. Let me explain.
>
> There are three fields in the creation of a PDF that affect this. There is
> the permissions field which, let's say, is set to not allow modification.
> Then there is a user password and an owner password.
>
> If the user password is set, then the user must enter that password in
> order to see the content of the PDF. If it's not set, then although the
> contents is minimally encrypted, any reader program can display it and may
> let you modify it, violating the permissions.
>
> However, if the OWNER password is set, and the user does NOT know the
> owner password, then the encrypted contents can be decoded to allow
> reading, printing, etc., but the reader software can not modify the
> contents, because it doesn't know how to reencrypt it. The best that it
> can do is to "save as" a new PDF. A recipient of the new PDF could easily
> see that it was not encrypted by the owner.
>
> In summary, these programs let you modify a PDF, UNLESS it is owner
> passworded. If that's not accurate, I'd like to be informed.

Hmmm ... if you can read the document when it is encrypted with the
owner password, then surely (a) you need the key to be able to read it
and (b) with the key you can re-encrypt it?

If, on the other hand, it's signed with an asymetric key ...

I don't know enough about pdfs to confirm or deny what you say, but I
know a lot of linux programs can be made to ignore security settings and
what you say about passwords just doesn't feel quite right.

Cheers,
Wol

[Bob Rasmussen]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2012, Wols Lists wrote:

> Hmmm ... if you can read the document when it is encrypted with the
> owner password, then surely (a) you need the key to be able to read it
> and (b) with the key you can re-encrypt it?
>
> If, on the other hand, it's signed with an asymetric key ...

It IS quite often the case that you will have a one-way key, that allows
you to decode but not encode. I don't know if that is the definition of an
asymmetric key or not.

[Don Robinson]

Tony, etal,   Thanks for the suggestions, they will keep me busy for a while.   DonR --- On Wed, 2/15/12, Tony Gravagno <bacj8...@snkmail.com> wrote:

From: Tony Gravagno <bacj8...@snkmail.com> Subject: RE: [mvdbms] Utility to create pdf from text data. To: mvd...@googlegroups.com

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