The FileConverterPro is installed as Windows service and offers functions for the conversion of the most important document formats to PDF, PDF/A incl OCR through a web-service interface (SOAP or REST).
For FCpro the same base components as for the FileConverter, PDFMerge and AutoOCR are used. Adjustments and extensions are therefor available the same for all these applications.
The web-service interface of FCpro is compatible to the web-service interface of AutoOCR by which all applications are runnable without adjustment with both services. With that e.g. our Alfreso / ifresco Transformer integration can be operated with AutoOCR – for pure OCR processing – as well as with FCpro – to process all document formats incl. OCR.
As well as for AutoOCR also for the FCpro service is a ready-to-use .NET / C# sample application with EXE and source code available. With it the FCpro functions can be tested immediatly or the code can be used as a base for the integration in own applications.
PDF or PDF/A conversion – all important file formats – MS-Office, image, e-mail, HTML and so on get converted to PDF or PDF/A automatically. Normally no other components or MS-Office are required. The conversion takes place directly without additional applications or printer drivers. Optionally also MS-Office 2010/2013 can be used as converter component if available or a “high fidelity” conversion for office formats is required. Image and PDF documents can be made searchable via the integrated iOCR. Optional through a additional license also the Abbyy OCR engine can be used.
Supported source file formats:
- DOC, DOCX, RTF, TXT,
- XLS, XLSX,
- PPT, PPTX, PPS, PPSX,
- FDF, XFDF (Adobe forms),
- XML
- PNG, BMP, TIF, TIFF, JPG, JPEG, GIF
- ZIP, RAR, 7Z,
- MSG, EML,
- PDF,
- HTM, HTML, MHTML,
- PMTX (PDFMerge)
Functions – general:
- MS-Windows service application with SOAP / REST web-service interface for document conversion from Office, PDF, image, HTML, ZIP, MSG and e-mail to PDF or PDF/A. The communication takes place encrypted via HTTPS.
- Processing profiles – all settings can be preconfigured and retrieved and used through profiles.
- Direct conversion without usage of additional required original applications.
- For the “high fidelity” conversion of MS-Office documents also MS-office 2010 / 2013 can be installed and used.
- Dissolving and conversion of container files – ZIP, 7ZIP, RAR, MSG, EML, PMTX – to build overall files. Structures are displayed as bookmarks, for not convertible documents placeholder sites are inserted
- images and scans (TIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF, PDF) can be converted to searchable PDF’s with the integrated iOCR – Abbyy OCR engine as option.
- Parallel processing with configurable amount of processes and priorities – allows the optimal usage of the hardware and guarantees a quick work off.
Special functions:
- With ZIP/RAR/7Z conatainers all contained and supported documents get extracted automatically, converted and merged to a single PDF overall document. The folder structure contained in the container gets displayed in the PDF output document as the bookmark structure.
- MSG / EML – e-mails can contain any also interlaced attachements. This documents get extracted also, for not convertible formats placeholder pages get inserted and the structure gets displayed via PDF bookmarks.
- PDF/A conversion – the FCpro is also a PDF to PDF/A converter. The converted documents can be produced as PDF/A-1b or also with embedded source documents as ISO standardized PDF/A-3b format. Therefor the FCpro service is suited ideally for long-term archiving of documents and e-mails.
- PMTX – is a XML data format from PDFMerge which contains structure and processing information as well as the documents themselves. From it PDFMerge creates a single overall PDF file which consists of the converted and merged single files. The PDFMerge structure gets displayed via the PDF bookmarks.
- FDF, XFDF – PDF form data – can be fused with PDF forms and converted to a “normal” PDF.
- Stamps, watermarks, stationery – can be configured and applied
- Intelligent OCR of PDF – PDF documents get analyzed page per page if OCR is required or not – pages which already contain text don’t get OCR processed again, bookmarks and links stay preserved. This saves time and resources and increases the quality.
Functions – PDF-export settings – part of the processing profiles
- Infilling of PDF profile fields with fixed values or variables (origin values, profile name, date, time, PC name, user, file name, application, pages, PDF-level, user variables)
- Web-optimization (yes / no)
- Preserve existing bookmarks (yes / no)
- Settings for opening the PDF
- Security settings – password-opening, system, restrictions
- Pagination – position, start, offset, text (current page, pages), font, color, masking underlying area
- Stationery / PDF watermarks – underlay / overlay, file selection, opacity (%), position
- Text stamp – one or more stamps, text or variables (like profile fields incl. bookmarks), start, offset, font, style (incl. outline), size, color, opacity (%), angle
FCpro user interface:
FCpro – conversion profile:
FCpro – conversion profile – OCR:
Available FCpro applications / clients:
The FCpro server provides its functionality through a SOAP /REST – web-service interface to other applications. The following applications and integrations are available for the FCpro or use its functions:
1.) FileConverterPro – WCF service sample – this client application is additionally installed with the FCpro setup. With it all function availabel via the web-service can be tried and tested. Beside the EXE is this application also available as C# source code to be able to use FCpro functions from own applications quick and easily.
2.) DropConvert – convert documents to PDF(/A) via drag & drop or folder monitoring. DropConvert is a Windows client application which communicates with the FCpro service to convert documents which are dragged into the always “on top” displayed “DropZone” or into a monitored folder to PDF or PDF/A. The result documents are transfered back to the client and deposited in a configurable output folder. The FCpro server is called https encrypted through the local net or also external through the internet.
3.) EMail Archiver – The EMail Archiver is a MS Outlook 2010 / 2013 plug-in with which single or multiple marked e-mails or even whole e-mail folders and subfolders with all contained e-mail masseges can be converted to PDF or PDF/A directly out of MS Outlook. The processing and conversion of the e-mail runs via the FCpro server which is called encrypted via https on the local network or external through the internet. The resulting PDF(/A)’s get deposited in a configured start-folder and path into the file system with the variable information extracted from the e-mail.
PDF/A and especially PDF/A-3 are particularly good for the archiving or for ISO standardized long-term archiving of e-mails. With PDF/A-3 the original MSG / EML messages get embedded also in the PDF container.
4.) Alfresco / ifresco – Transformer – the installation of the “ifresco Transformer” AMP’s for Alfresco allows the PDF(/A) conversion and the OCR processing through the FileConverterPro server. If only OCR is required the AutoOCR server can be used instead. The processing of the supported document formats to PDF, PDF/A and/or with OCR is then available via Java, JavaScript, REST, the “transform” action through folders and in Alfresco Share as “transform” document action.
FCpro – versions, licensing, scope
The FileConverterPro is available in a basic version as well as in an extended version incl. PDF/A and OCR. With the extended version optionally the Abby OCR engine can be licensed additionally to the iOCR. Abbyy licenses are available page (monthly or overall volume) or processor dependent. The FCpro standard license is per server but there are also “Enterprise” for any amount of servers per company and “OEM” licenses for the integration through developers in their own applications.
Also containing in the FCpro server is the – WCF service sample application incl. source code and the MS-Windows application “DropConvert” – this can be installed and used on any workplace without restrictions.