PDF [Portable Document Format] is a versatile format for publishing, printing and archiving that can be viewed directly with a browser using PDF viewers such as Adobe Acrobat.

EscapeE has unrivalled features for PDF creation:

 Security features
You can generate PDFs which have restricted access. There are two passwords: the 'owner' password allows full access including changing the security options, the 'user' password is for general users. The password can be encrypted in the PDF to allow RedTitan to recover it if it is lost.The options for general users may be restricted to prevent:
a) Printing.
b) Selection of text and graphics for copying to the clipboard.
c) Changing the document.
d) Adding or changing notes and form fields.

  Compression
You can opt to use Flate compression to reduce the document size significantly, and text phrases can be stored as longer phrases to improve searching.

  Indexing
If you have marked out data fields, for example using font specifications, you can make an index from the specified fields.

TIFF [Tagged Image File Format] is a useful archive format which can be viewed in EscapeE and in COLD and other proprietary archive systems. TIFF provides an exact image of the document for auditing or legal purposes. EscapeE provides a number of options for TIFF images: see below.

When you view a PCL document on screen you can sweep out parts of the page with the mouse and define fieldnames for each area. EscapeE displays the fields clearly in colours and you can then extract the data at all those positions into a new file. Datafields can be exported alone or in conjunction with other transforms, such as TIFF creation.

Users with legacy applications who do not want to alter the source code will find this invaluable for recovering a PCL datastream into CSV (comma separated values) with field names in the first record or plain text. CSV can be deployed in standard database applications or imported to the RedTitan Dynamic Document Formatter. Plain text is a versatile format that can be used in any data application.

A range of sophisticated features allow you to specify:

  Tags
Data fields can be defined as being located at some offset relative to a tag which is a text string that is matched against items in a specified area of the page.

  Font weights and styles
Allows you to refine the text search by specifying font weights and styles.

  End of field
Allows you to define how the end of a field is recognised.

  Alignment
If you are exporting proportionally spaced text into fixed pitch plain text, EscapeE can add spaces so that you can control the way text is aligned.

  Multi-page sets
Define fields on multi-page sets of records.

For the latest e-commerce applications, EscapeE converts the the marked-up data fields into XML data (extensible markup language). Now you can also create XSL and CSS cascading stylesheets when outputting XML. Using this option, three additional files are generated.
  an XSL stylesheet defining the fields;
  a CSS stylesheet defining the positions of the fields on the page;
  an HTM file which ties these files together with the XML file.

You can export either the whole document or just the data fields to plain text. This allows you to create documents which can be easily edited with any text editor.

Alternatively, you can simply copy the text or data fields on the page to the Windows clipboard and paste into other applications.

IMG export produces a datastream for feeding to a channel-attached Xerox centralised DJDE/Metacode printer. It means that Xerox users can print identical documents created from standard desktop word processing software such as Microsoft Word. Documents are printed ‘to file’ to create a PCL file and then converted to Metacode images by EscapeE. See below for image options.

As for Xerox IMG export, AFP export creates image files for printing on IBM production printers that support Advanced Function Printing.  See below for image options.

PNG export creates Portable Network Graphics files for web publishing applications. PNG is rapidly gaining favour as the replacement format for GIF images in HTML documents because it eliminates concerns about copyright. See below for image options.

Various options are available for TIFF, IMG, AFP and PNG image export, depending on the format:

  Compression
Compress images into one of the standard formats (e.g. CCITT group 4, Packbits or Flate).

  Single or multi-page
Export all the images into one multi-page file or create a file for each page of the job.

  Rotation
Rotate the image to the orientation of the page (e.g. for a portrait page use 270 degree).

  Trimming
Export only part of the printed region, by sweeping out an area of the page with the cursor before exporting.  If you do this without marking out an area (e.g. when converting in batch mode) the area where data fields are marked is exported.

Converting a PCL job to Xerox FDL [Forms Description Language] means that pages can be edited using RedTitan Document Design System, and output for the full range of Xerox printers as well as virtually any other printer. FDL export has a number of special options:

  Font download
To avoid problems when you are reusing the form, you can set EscapeE to recalculate the characteristics of download fonts.

  Editing
If you are going to edit an FDL form using RedTitan's Design System you can combine the text into flowed paragraphs with spaces in between.

  Tagged data
If your PCL file contains tagged data, for example as created by Microsoft Word, you can import the data names into the FDL form.

  Conversion to RIF
You can also convert the page to a RedTitan Image Format [RIF] image, removing surrounding white space. It may be useful to create a single image if your file has many images, but it cannot be edited later (except with an image editor).

Copyright © RedTitan Technology Limited 1998-2004.