PDFING NEWSLETTER NO 13 - April 2005 ==================================== Since our last letter in November 2004, we have been concentrating on detailed improvements to PDFing, rather than adding new features. Although no progress has been made towards automatic Fax generation can be reported, many users have used the email feature to send Faxes via other software. The latest version (v11) of GFI Fax maker can now process the PDF files sent to it by PDFing. LuateX, our spooled-file to Excel product, has been adopted by many more users. We hope, at some time in the future, to market LuateX as a stand-alone product. Lua for PDFing, our scripting language, has continued to prove itself very useful. In this letter: --------------- PDFing release v3.0.0.16 LuateX Lua for PDFing Requests for Enhancements PDFing release v3.0.0.16 ------------------------ The most significant change is that the spooled-file display "grid" now opens very much more quickly and requires less memory to function correctly. This speed-up is most noticeablewhen more than 5000 spooled-files are available for review. Some users of the NT Service version have reported problems where the service stops accepting spooled-files from OS400 after a certain number of files. Because this problem only occurs occasionly, we have yet to find a definite reason for this problem. However, the latest version of PDFing includes a new "memory-manager" which is much more efficient and prevents memory fragmenation. We are still performing tests, and so far the service has not failed after running non-stop for 14 days and converting 60,0000 spooled-files. Until we have tracked the problem down, we recommend that you stop and re-start the service at regular (weekly) intervals. This latest version of PDFing is now available from: http://www.pdfing.com/down For more detail on changes to PDFing, please see: http://www.pdfing.com/releasehist.html LuateX ------ A new release of the LuateX IDE (v1.1.0.3) is now available from: http://www.luatex.com/down This version has improved help-text and documentation. The most notable changes to its features are the ability to specify that the output spreadsheet should be un-protected and that VBA macros (including start-up macros) are preserved. Please see the documetation for LuateX table: Sheet.Out for details. Now that LuateX is in use at more than thirty locations, we have added a discussion-board to our web-site: http://www.luatex.com We hope that by making your questions and suggestions publicly available, we can all benefit! Please see: http://www.luatex.com/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi to join in the discussion. Although, for the present, no log-in is required, in future we may need to restrict access and to set up private user accounts. Lua for PDFing ============== Lua for PDFing now supports, from V3.0.0.15 onwards, a new "event" function: Event.OnBeginSecure() this allows for the manipulation of output PDF files, before they are secured. We can now supply a program that allows the addition of any PDF file to the end of the output PDF files. So that, for instance, "terms and conditions" can be added to orders and invoices. Some OS400 print-formatting software, sends a spooled-file containing PCL "macros", which are up-loaded to the printer and processed when the "main" spooled-file is sent. We can now provide an example script which allows PDFing to behave correctly when sent spooled-files produced by "Form-Matic". It should be possible to do the same for similar products. Requests for Enhancements ------------------------- The outstanding requests: 1) Printing/Faxing the output PDF files automatically. 2) Merging multiple PDF files into one PDF. We are always pleased to hear of any ideas and suggestions that you may have for PDFing, they really are extremely valuable! Thanks to you, PDFing has many useful features that would otherwise be absent. Regards David Fowle and Jane Hearn