Applies to EscapeE Professional and Batch Automation editions only

Advanced users can run EscapeE from the command line of the program for batch or unattended usage. The Shortcut dialog provides a convenient way of setting up options, see Shortcuts - the easy way to construct a command line. It is also possible to save a configuration as an *.INI file (use Save As... from the Options menu's Configuration dialog) and invoke it later using the syntax:

ESCAPEE ^^configname

The name of a file may be specified on the command line and may be followed by a space and one or more options, e.g.:

ESCAPEE TEST.LSH /DISPLAY

in which case just this file is processed.

A wildcard specification may be given if desired, e.g.:

ESCAPEE *.PRN or ESCAPEE C:\TIFFS\

which is equivalent to ESCAPEE C:\TIFFS\*.LSH

To extract file data and incorporate it into the folder name you need to give an output file specification that includes an equals sign, which will be substituted by the data extracted from the field. For instance

escapee dir*.pcl /tiff /outspec s:\escapee\=\*.tif /mkdir

processes all PCL files with names starting with DIR and converts them to TIFFs, then puts the result in a folder dependent on the field.

The format, the input specification and the output specification are interconnected.
If a format is specified on the command line then any default output specification is ignored. For example, to create a PDF from the command line you need to specify the option explicitly:

ESCAPEE c:\temp\test.pcl /PDF

(Note that specifying ESCAPEE c:\temp\test.pcl just displays the file.)

The default input and output specifications are mainly of use in continuous (timed) mode: see To run EscapeE continuously from start-up and Setting the Automatic export options.
If you specify an output format then you should also specify the input file name (or a wildcard specification) and if you wish to send the output to another folder you must also specify the /TO command (not /OUTSPEC which is merely the default, and therefore ignored in this case).

For example:

"C:\Program Files\RedTitan\software\ESCAPEE.EXE" ^^"c:\INIfiles\ideatiff.ini"c:\inputfile.pcl /TO c:\output\*.tif /BORDER 0 /TIFF /X

(The purpose of the /X command is "exit after processing the file or files specified on the command line".)

To send output to a printer, use the /PRINT command. For example,

ESCAPEE TEST.PRN /PRINT

would use the default printer, whereas

ESCAPEE TEST.PRN /PRINT 'My printer'

would use a printer named My printer. To ask the user to select a printer, use the ? option:

ESCAPEE TEST.PRN /PRINT ?

Further options may be appended, e.g.

ESCAPEE TEST.PRN /PRINT 'My printer,S'

scales the page to fit the paper.

Examples: Command lines

The following topics define the syntax of the options:

Command line syntax

EscapeE configuration symbols

Tips

If TIFF generation is selected and there are some fields selected, then a log file in CSV format will be generated. The first field (called FILENAME) contains the full file path of each generated TIFF image and the selected fields are extracted from the text for each page.

The option(s) used for a job may be stored in an 'options file' and invoked simply using the /OPTIONS syntax, for example:
ESCAPEE /OPTIONS myoptions.OPT

IDF note

IDF files may be run from the command line just like any other EscapeE compatible file, e.g.

escapee C:\Reports\Winter.idf

You may also specify a default file to supply data for the IDF file: add a comma and the filename, e.g.

escapee C:\Reports\Winter.idf,North.txt

Any FILE or INCLUDE statements in Winter.idf which do not specify a filename will use the default file North.txt.

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Links

Shortcuts - the easy way to construct a command-line

Running EscapeE from a program

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