PDF News – PDF/A, Archivierung, OCR, DMS, Dokumentenmanagment, Scan to PDF, ECM, PDF Convert, Free PDF printerdriver, freier PDF Druckertreiber, SDK, API, PDF softwaredevelopment – Page 36 – Distribute, publish and archive documents.

ifresco Client for Alfresco DMS/ECM – New version in labor

2013-11-12

We work on a new version of the ifresco Client for the Alfresco DMS/ECM OpenSource Software and there are already the first screenshots of the new version.

Some of the coming innovations:

The JavaScript programming is only based on ExtJS. Until now also jQuery was used.
The new version uses the recent version of the PHP framwork – Symfony
For the search and for the document- and treeview individual server side JavaScripts in the Alfresco repository get used.
Essentially improved and revised user interface for the administration and configuration.
Search and view of document libraries of the Alfresco sites is supported.
Direct search for folders to be able to quickly choose the folder in extensive folder structures.
Tag Manager – Creating and managing of the Alfresco tags.

iPaper – New version 2.1.37

2013-11-11

The iPaper version 2.1.37 is now based on the recent version of our PDF printer driver eDocPrintPro version 3.19.0 and therefor also on the recent GhostScript version 9.10.

Requirements: The requirements for the installation get checked from the setup. For the installation under MS-Windows 8.0 or 8.1 the .NET runtime 3.5 is required.

Download – iPaper 32 & 64bit >>>

As installation requirement the setups checks if the GhostScript version 9.10 already exists. If not it gets automatically downloaded from our FTP server and installed. The GS setup could also be run before.

GhostScript 9.10 setup – see also >>>

Download – GhostScript 9.10 MSI Setup – 32bit (ca. 16MB) >>>
Download – GhostScript 9.10 MSI Setup – 64bit (ca.16MB) >>>

ifresco Profiler – Alfresco standard plugin available

2013-10-30

For the ifresco Profiler there is now a free Alfresco standard plug-in available.

The standard plug-in allows the upload of documents through the ifresco Profiler into any Alfresco / ifresco repository. With that only the standard fields and the standard content type for documents of Alfresco is used. So it isn’t required to install an additional content model. The standard plug-in is free available and therefor “out of the box” usable with every Alfresco server. With it the ifresco Profiler functions can be tested together with Alfresco without additional outlay.

Supported fields / functions:

Filename / title (required) – The name of the document in Alfresco matches the title and not allowed fields get replaced with “_”.
Description (optional) – long text description of the document content
Alfresco destination-folder (required) – selection of the Alfresco destination folder in which the document should be stored.
Tags (optional) – Tags are keywords to classify a document and to directly list all documents marked with it later on. Existing tags can be chosen and new ones can be added.

Title – rules: The standard plug-in installs also the XML-file “titlerules_StandardPlugin.xml”. In this file dynamically createable fields get defined as well as rules to automatically generate the document title. The selection of the rule is done via “Type / Subtype”. A mask with fields – with the types: Text, date, version, year gets generated from it and shown at the profiling.

Type-ahead searching for Alfresco folders – Through the search field existing folders can be found fast via the input of one or more search terms. A part string search of the with AND linked terms is done and the search results offered for selection as a list. The search term for the folder has to contain at least 3 characters.

Tags: Tags are keywords to classify a document and to directly list all documents marked with it later on. Existing tags can be chosen via type ahead search and new ones can be added.

Text stamp: At the upload information can be added to the PDF in form of text stamps. The option can be activated and configured through the checkbox “Show stamp settings tab”. The position, color, size and font style of the stamp is configured here. The text can be build from fixed parts or variables.

An overview of the general functions of the ifresco Profiler basic version can be found here >>>

Download – Detail description – ifresco Profiler inkl. Standard Plugin >>>
Download – ifresco Profiler basic version >>>
Download – ifresco Profiler Alfresco standard plugin >>>
Download – ifresco Profiler standard plugin sample files >>>

AutoOCR version 1.10.11 – run subsequent processing through DLL

2013-10-28

With the version 1.10.9 a new function was implemented to run a subsequent action after the OCR and the creation of the destination file. This could take place at monitored folders as well as at the processing via web-services as C# or VB.NET scripts.

With the AutoOCR version 1.10.11 this possibility got further extended – Now it is also possible to use external DLL’s to run subsequent functions.

Via a checkbox it can be switched between source code (script) and DLL processing and via a selective list the DLL can be chosen.

For that there is a new interface action IAction2 which is inherited from IAction. For the DLL to be available to choose it has to be copied into the AutoOCR installation folder. All DLL’s which end with %NAME%.AutoOCRPlugin.dll get referenced. Please keep in mind that with the installation of AutoOCR as windows service no message boxes or other user interactions are possible and therefor can’t be used.

For the additional tab to show up and be configurable AutoOCR has to be started with the commandline parameter /ShowAction.

Download – sample project – DLL action – C# / .NET >>>
Download – AutoOCR – OCR Server incl. iOCR engine (ca. 150MB) >>>

For the Abbyy OCR engine version 10 there are demo licenses for 30 days or 500 pages available – these can be requested from us

Download- Abbyy FineReader 10.x Rel 4 OCR Engine Setup (ca. 460MB) >>>
Request demolicensekey for FineReader OCR engine

FileConverter – version 1.0.27 – supports MS-Office 2010 as converter

2013-10-28

With the new version 1.0.27 of the FileConverter service now also MS-Office 2010 is supported for the conversion of MS-Word, MS-Excel and MS-PowerPoint files to PDF, PDF/A and TIFF. MS-Office can be configured and used parallel to the consisting, direct conversion or mixed, after folders or e-mail boxes. The conversion is, like with the direct conversion, done silent in the background via the FileConverter Windows service. Required is the installation of the 32bit version of MS-Office on the computer and that the user of the service has opened the MS-Office applications at least once.

With the usage of MS-Office as converter engine 100% quality and the support of all MS-Office features can be guaranteed, which can only can only be reached with the usage of the original application.

To take advantage of the available computer resources or to guarantee an optimal throughput the conversions get, depending on the configuration, processed parallel also. The set standard is 5 parallel processes.

Download – FileConverter – documents & e-mails to PDF, PDF/A and TIFF >>>

eDocPrintPro – uninstall without user input – “silent”

2013-10-15

Beside the “silent” installation without user input it could also be necessary to uninstall eDocPrintPro – the normal version, the PDF/A version or GhostScript the same way. But you have to know the product code of the setup to execute the uninstall “silent”:

“msiexec” /qn /uninstall {<product code>}

Product code eDocPrintPro:

English installation: {EB0C0CC8-9BEB-4578-9960-CEE5399CA40A}
German installation: {72153E94-CAD9-42FF-9319-20823D92978C}

Product code eDocPrintPro PDF/A:

English installation: {ACDDA0E0-4FCF-414A-8DB2-8C00D85B8487}
German installation: {FD85B8BD-6497-4009-B528-00596F5D1B54}

Product code GhostScript x86 and GhostScript x64:

English installation: {6597A62D-8BD9-49EB-AAE6-DEDF417C68B1}
German installation: {344BD061-2564-422E-860F-9E5DC49983AE}

ZUGFeRD – eDocPrintPro PDF/A-3 printer driver for electronic invoices available

2013-09-26

The ZUGFeRD data format is a, based on the PDF/A level 3, format for electronic invoices in germany. Thereby the PDF document is used for archiving, print and visual representation and the data gets additionally embedded as XML. The XML contains sector-neutral information and metadata for the invoice.

For a ZUGFeRD invoice also a PDF/A-3 has to be created as well as a XML file has to be available. The XML usually gets created from the ERP. The ZUGFeRD eDoc printer driver allows with a simple print process to create such invoices out of any application.

Possible courses: the XML is available in any cases, the print process is done via the ZUGFeRD eDoc driver:

interactive choice of the XML file via file dialog
“silent” processing of the XML with pre defined path and file name.
XML can also be deleted after embedding automatically to create a defined state.
Starting of the print process via the eDoc SDK, the destinaion path and names of the PDF’s is adjusted through the SDK, the document printed, the XML gets embedded automatically and afterwards an event about the finishing of the process is passed back to the application.

ZUGFeRD – customized – specifically interesting for software-developer:

The ZUGFeRD eDocPrintPro PDF/A-3 printer driver is specifically also for developers of software solutions because with it the creation of ZUGFeRD conform electronic invoices can be implemented fast and easily. The software only has to create the ZUGFeRD conform XML file, the rest is done by the ZUGFeRD eDoc printer driver. Software provider can implement the solution with their name and use it without any additional license costs (royalty-free).

Function range ZUGFeRD – customized:

ZUGFeRD – eDocPrintPro PDF/A-3 printer driver + setup with own name / logo / links for the lizensefree (royalty-free) usage together with the own software solution
32 and 64bit version – for MS-Windows XP / 7 / 8 / MS-Windows Server 2008 / CITRIX and MS-Terminalserver
eDocPrintPro SDK – to be able to automate the print process and to integrate it in the own application.
ZUGFeRD – XML extractor – to be able to extract the XML file from the PDF (C# .NET or Commandline Tool)

ZUGFeRD PDF Druckertreiber

Download – eDocPrintPro ZUGFeRD – PDF/A-3 printer driver >>>
Download – ZUGFeRD – sample invoice >>>
Download – ZUGFeRD – sample XML >>>

ZUGFeRD – information package >>>

Overview of the PDF/A standards

2013-09-18

The document format PDF got developed by the company Adobe in the early 90’s, on the base of the page description language “Postscript”. At first it was a proprietary but disclosed file format and in in 2008 submitted to the ISO and since them builds, in version 1.7, the ISO standard 32000.

PDF/A – The PDF for archiving:

PDF/A is the appellation for the ISO norm 19005 and defines a standard document format for the long term archiving of electronical documents. The norm ensures which PDF function have to be contained or not to archive documents in the long term.

Important: The PDF/A standard is “constitutive” – if a document is PDF/A-1 conform it is automatically also covered in the PDF/A-2 and PDF/A-3 standard – the higher standards allow more PDF functions. But there is no “better” and “worse” PDF/A level but you take the required level and standards to assign the required functions.

PDF/A-1 (since 2006)

For PDF/A-1 there are 2 levels:

PDF/A-1b: basic – this one is for the explicit visual peproducability of PDF/A documents.
PDF/A-1a: accesible – like 1b – but has to also include the content structuring of the document (tagged PDF) – this level can’t be created automated through direct conversion, scan, OCR or printer drivers – technically yes but the content structuring usually has to be created and completed manually already in the source application.

PDF/A-2 (since Juni 2011)

For PDF/A-2 there are 3 levels:

PDF/A-2b: basic – consistent with the 1b – with extensions of the level 2
PDF/A-2a: accessible – consistent with the 1a – with extensions of the level 2
PDF/A-2u: unicode – hierzu gibt es keine Entsprechung im Level 1 – entspricht dem Level 2b – jedoch muss der eingebettete Text im UniCode Standard abgebildet sein.

Extensions compared to PDF/A-1 :

JPEG2000 compression
Transparency
Layers
OpenType-font
digital signatures as PAdes (PDF Advanced Electronic Signatures)
Container: PDF/A-1 files can be implemented in PDF/A-2 files
the page limit got extende to 381 x 381 km

PDF/A-3 (since October 2012)

The essential extensions of the PDF/A level 3 is, that it is possible to embed any files into the PDF/A. With that, for the archiving, a PDF file can be combined with the archiving of the source file, for searching, displaying and printing. Would you only archive the PDF file for a MS-EXCEL, eventually important additional informations like the formulas which it’s based on, would get lost. The embedded (source) files can be extracted from the PDF at any time.

More ISO normalized PDF standards are:

PDF/E – PDF for Engineering: ISO 24517 – PDF/E-documents implement: Layers for installation- and construction plans as well as three-dimensional models inclusive predefined 3D-views.
PDF/H (Healthcare) – PDF in the health system (best practice) for the diagnostics by imaging and for the storage of patients data and medical reports.
PDF/X (Exchange) für Druckvorlagen: ISO 15929 / 15930 – The PDF/X-standard got developed for the exchange of announcement data for newspapers as well as for the transfering of print models and jobs. PDF/X is available in the following levels: 1a, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5g, 5gp, 5n
PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) – ISO 14289 – for universal accessible documents, z. B. as reading help for visually handicapped people.
PDF/VT (Variable Transactional) – ISO 16612-2 – for the “printing of variables or transactional document contents”.
PDF Level 1,7 – ISO 32000: The ISO has approved the Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.7 as international standard.

GhostScript 9.10 – base for eDocPrintPro from version 3.19.0 on

2013-09-17

From the version 3.19.0 of eDocPrintPro on, only the current version 9.10 of GhostScript is used. The eDocPrintPro setup detects if the required version is already installed and if not automatically downloads GS from our FTP server and installs it. For that, an active internet connection as well as the authorization to do a FTP download is required. If this isn’t possible the GhostScript setup has to be downloaded and installed manually before.

GhostScript 9.10 setup:

Download – GhostScript 9.10 MSI Setup – 32bit (ca. 16MB) >>>
Download – GhostScript 9.10 MSI Setup – 64bit (ca.16MB) >>>

ifresco AutoOCR – Version 1.18 available

2013-09-13

With the Version 1.18 of ifresco AutoOCR – the OCR server integration for Alfresco, there are new functions and extensions:

implementation of the new paging API for the Jobs-list of the AutoOCR server – page browsing (back/forth), deleting of all jobs, deleting older than x days, sort jobs, select jobs by date.
free configurable run-time transformer. File-, as well as Pipe-IO based commandline tools can be used to configure additional transformers.
Like the commandline based run-time transformators, also Transformer can be used through JavaScripts.
AutoOCR Content Model extension for the OCR status (aspect) gets installed to be able to deposit and request the OCR status of a file as metadata.
The optional ifresco Tools AMP – allows the background OCR processing in defined intervals for the primary processing of existing document collections or for the following processing of the newly added documents. The detection of the documents which should be processed, as well as the processing itself happens via JavaScripts, which are executed, on the server, batch oriented and timed in the background. Thereby also additional Alfresco Share – document actions can be configured and executed through JavaScript e.g. to convert the chosen PDF and image documents to searchable PDF(/A)’s through the AutoOCR server and automatically replace the input files with them. With the ifresco Tools there are, through JavaScripts, AutoOCR functions independend from the configured Alfresco transformer available, for the mass-batch- as well as the interactive single processing.

AMP of the version 1.18 are available for the following Alfresco versions: 4.0.1 EE, 4.0.2 EE, 4.0d CE, 4.1.1 EE, 4.1.2 EE, 4.1.3 EE, 4.1.4 EE, 4.2b CE, 4.2c CE
AMP of the ifresco Tools 1.1 for: 4.2c CE, 4.2d CE

Download – ifresco AutoOCR – Runtime Transformer description >>>
Download – ifresco AutoOCR – Transformer through JavaScript description>>>
Download – ifresco AutoOCR – Example JavaScript Transformer >>>