pdfMachine Version 6.5  

 

How does it Work

Preview

Editing

Configuration
   General
   Next Action
   Security
   Text Watermark
   PDF Stationery
   Registration 

Purchase 

Contact Details

How does it work?

pdfMachine contains a print driver that converts a print stream from an application directly to a PDF file.  After successful installation of pdfMachine you should be able to go into the 'printers' folder and see the 'pdfMachine' printer. To use pdfMachine simply open the document you want to print and print to the 'pdfMachine' printer.

Printing from Microsoft Word Example

1. Open your document

Open up the document you wish to print from within Microsoft Word. 

2. Print your document

From the 'File' menu select 'Print', as shown below.

3. Select the 'pdfMachine' printer

 A window like the one below pops up.  Select the pdfMachine printer then press the 'Print' button.

 

4. Preview PDF file and select the next action

 A window like the one below pops up displaying your PDF file.

Save As

Prompts you to save the PDF document to a filename of your choice.

Send

Launches the default email client with the PDF file attached. The PDF file will have a default filename which may be based on the original document filename.

Edit

Launches the edit window that allows you to insert, append, delete and rearrange pages within a PDF file. 

Options

Displays the configuration options property sheet.

Help

Launches the help.

Editing

When the "Edit" button is pressed in the preview window the following window is launched.  The left hand side contains thumbnail images of every page in the document. The right hand side shows the current page. When you have finished editing the document you must close the current window and the new document will be displayed in the preview window.

 

Rearrange Pages

You can rearrange the order of pages by selecting thumbnails and dragging them into the correct position.

File - Save

Saves the current document as is.

File - Close

Closes the edit window

Edit - Insert Pages

Prompts you for a PDF file to insert after  the current page. 

Edit - Append  Pages

Prompts you for a PDF file to append to the end of the document. 

Edit - Delete Pages

Deletes the currently selected pages. 

 

Configuration Options

General

Save Filename Action

 Controls the filename of the resulting PDF file.
Valid Values  Description
Use document title as filename   The user is prompted for  filename.
Use the 'Default Directory' and 'Default Save Filename' Use the values for "Default Directory" and "Default Filename" to generate a file name. This file will be overwritten without any prompting.
Use document title as filename Use the document title for the filename. The file will be saved in the "Default Directory". The document title is obtained from the pDocName member of the DOC_INFO_1 print job structure. 
This gives developers the opportunity to control the filename programmatically.
Note that is value may be automatically converted into a legal filename if it contains illegal filename characters. 
Use document title as filename and display wait dialog Same as previous option and also display the 'wait' dialog box with the gear animation.  

 

Default Directory

 The directory that is used to store the PDF file in.

Default Filename

 The filename that is used.

Printer Res (DPI)

 Defines the resolution that is used by the printer driver in dots per inch. This usually has little effect on file size but controls the precision with which text and graphics are placed.

Image  Res (DPI)

 The resolution that images are 'downsampled' to measured in dots per inch. Sometimes images are sampled at a high DPI for better results when printing to high end printers. These high DPI sampled images result in larger PDF files.  Screen resolution is 96 DPI which is a good setting for PDF files intended solely for viewing on the screen.

JPEG Quality

 High quality results in larger PDF files, low quality smaller PDF files. "No JPEG" means JPEG compression is not used - "Flate" compression is used which is not "lossy" like JPEG.

Next Action

Next Action

 Controls what happens after the PDF file has been generated.
Valid Values Action
Display 'what do you want do do next' dialog When set the "What do you want to do next" dialog is displayed.
No next action Do nothing. No next action takes place.
Launch default PDF viewer Launch the default PDF file viewer. (usually Acrobat reader)
Execute the command line Execute the command line that is defined by the "Exec Cmd." value. This command is executed after the PDF file has been created.
Launch default mail client with attached PDF Launches the default MAPI email client with the PDF file as an attachment. If there are values in "Email Subject" and "Email Body" they are populated in the email client.

 

 

 

Exec. Command

 When "NextAction" is equal to "Execute the command line", this is the command that is executed. It may contain a string such as "%s" which will be substituted with the full path of the generated PDF file.

e.g. ExecCmd = c:\winnt\notepad.exe "%s" 

This would launch the notepad.exe program upon completion of file generation. The notepad program would open the PDF file.

 

Email Fields

 If set provide default values for the default mail client when it is launched.

If the first character is an '@' then the rest of the text is taken to be a filename and the text is read from the file.

e.g if the "Email Body" value was "@c:\body.txt" then the file c:\body.txt would be read in and this would be placed in the body of the email.

For the TO, CC, BCC address fields, several addresses may appear if the addresses are comma or white space separated. Some email applications require the "SMTP:" prefix on mail addresses to send SMTP style mail.

Security

pdfMachine supports PDF encryption, as defined in the "Adobe Portable Document Format Version 1.4". 

Protect Document

If checked enables the security features. 

Encryption Key Length

RSA compatible encryption is used, with either 40 bit or 128 bit key lengths. Note that Acrobat Reader versions prior to version 5 only support 40 bit encryption. 128 bit encryption is more secure than 40 bit encryption.

User Password

If supplied, then this password must be entered for the document to be opened. Applications such as Acrobat Reader will prompt the user to enter this password prior to displaying the document. Longer passwords are more secure than shorter ones - up to a maximum size of 32 characters.

Owner Password

If supplied, this password will have to be entered for users to change document Permissions. Permissions can be changed in programs such as Adobe Acrobat.  

Permissions

These control what access the user has to the document. Note that if no owner password is present then these permissions can be changed by anyone who can open the document. (if they have the appropriate software) Also note that there are programs around that can remove these permissions from PDF documents without the need of an owner password.

Text Watermark

 This allows you to place a simple diagonal text string on every page of the PDF file. This feature is only available in the registered version.

Diagonal Text This is the text that appears as the watermark.
Font This is the font that is used for the watermark. These fonts are substituted with the base PDF fonts.
Font size The size in points of the watermark text.
Font Style Whether a solid or outline font style is wanted.
Grey Factor How grey you want the watermark to be. A value of 0 is black, a value of 100 is white.

PDF Stationery

This allows you to use the first page of an existing PDF file as stationery. The first page of the stationery PDF file will be merged on to every page of the resulting PDF file. 

The stationery PDF files must reside under the Windows system directory. The 'Add' button will allow you to copy the files into the correct directory for use. To edit these files you must have write access to your system directory.

 

Enter Registration Details

When you purchase pdfMachine you will receive a User Id and Key. Enter these in and press the register button to register the software. Once registered the "pdfMachine trial version" watermark  no longer appears on every page.

Contact Details

General Enquiries
info@pdfmachine.net

Technical Support
support@pdfmachine.net

Purchase

To purchase pdfMachine online please go to http://www.pdfmachine.net