October 10, 2000 - Reading time: 2 minutes

Acxiom Corp. project

We were in the process of converting mainframe reports on micro-fiche to Adobe PDF files. The process was initially done manually, and took an extensive amount of hours, even for small size reports. We started to use TXT2PDF instead, and with its features and speed we were able to automate the entire process !
Combining mainframe utilities and TXT2PDF options, the process works like this:
Mainframe batch jobs execute at night, create and print reports using the FBA option for carriage control printing.
These reports are also captured to disk, and another step in the jobs converts the mainframe page eject code ('1' in column 1) to PC page eject code (hex '0C' in column 1).
The report files are then FTP'ed to a PC-server, and a process starts automatically on the server, invoking TXT2PDF that creates PDFs from the mainframe reports.
Distribution of the PDFs is done via e-mail, CDs, etc.
Another challenge was to jump quickly to sub-reports within one main report.
Adobe reader 'Find" command was too slow doing this process.
Using TXT2PDF 'LINK' feature, we were able to create one single links.cfg file that contains ALL the reports IDs. Using this feature allows us to navigate through huge reports and sub-reports in seconds !
The technical support that was provided to us by Sanface during this implementation process was phenomenal!
Any question, issue, or problem that we had was emailed to Sanface, and the next morning an email with the solution was there.

October 10, 2000 - Reading time: 3 minutes

The Department of Planning, Design & Construction (PDC) at Cornell University project

We were looking for a way to avoid having to handle and store the "Office Copy" of invoices produced by our cost accounting system. We generate about 2,600 invoices per month, each one has anywhere from 2 - 30 pages. We needed a quasi unalterable copy for record retention and audit purposes.
We were also looking for away to leverage technology to make the office copy available on line to avoid having to walk down the hall to get a copy when trying to resolve a customer inquiry. We wanted the account representatives to have an exact copy of what the customer was looking at when they called.
txt2pdf PRO filled the bill. Each month, we generate two text files for each invoice. One is a config file used by txt2PDF Pro, the other the text file with the invoice data. We also create a bat file used to do a batch create of the PDF documents and to create entries in an Oracle database allowing us to search and retrieve the PDF documents.
The whole thing runs start to finish each month in about 20 minutes in the middle of the night and is available to our account reps via a web interface by the time they get into work the next morning and days before our customers get the hard copy. It is a hit.
Why txt2pdf PRO?
We were headed down a path of creating program code that would create individual postscript files that would have to be run through Acrobat Distiller. It is difficult code to write and maintain. This equals expensive. Also, it is a process that does not lend itself well to automation and would not allow us to fill in the document info such as keywords, title, etc.
We found out about txt2pdf PRO midway through the process. We had three programmer weeks into the program that was to create the postscript files and it still was not working properly. We had a real deadline to get it done. We were able to reuse some of that code to create a program that makes the config and text files for txt2pdf PRO. The project was complete that week and went onto production with a few days to spare.
Here you can find an example of our invoices, now in PDF!

September 19, 2000 - Reading time: 2 minutes

Butler Manufacturing Company, Inc., -- the world's leading producer of pre-engineered metal building systems and architectural products for the nonresidential construction market -- uses SANFACE Software TXT2PDF to generate immediate reports to its network of over 1,200 Butler Builders around the world.
Butler Builders receive automatic e-mail notices providing them with a link to the online .PDF Bill of Lading report for each truck shipped for a given order.
Builders typically receive this e-mail within 2 hours of the loading of the truck, giving them very timely notice of the pending delivery of materials to their job sites.
The Bill of Lading report is the same one that is delivered on each truck, and includes a list of all parts on that truck (if the truck has parts for more than one order, the report shows a grouped list of parts for each order).
An OpenVMS system in place at each of Butler's six North American plants generates the initial text file (which is still used to laser-print a paper report for loading on the truck).
Each ASCII text report file is then converted to Acrobat files on a Windows NT server using TXT2PDF; the resulting .PDF files are then placed on a web server and the filename/URLs are e-mailed to each builder registered on the company's extranet to receive such notices.
Butler was very pleased with the high level of support and personal attention provided by the TXT2PDF creators during the implementation of the project, and we continue to receive positive comments from builders who now have a way to monitor the status of their orders as they move through the manufacturing and shipping process.

May 5, 2000 - Reading time: ~1 minute

TransCanada Pipelines is using txt2pdf to solve the printing limitations of related web browsers.
Text reports are dynamically converted to PDF format and made available to our customers through our web based operational reporting tool.
Customers are then able to view and print the reports with the proper page breaks.
txt2pdf provided us with a simple, low cost, user friendly solution to get around the browser's html printing limitations.

May 1, 2000 - Reading time: ~1 minute

UNICON Inc., a leading provider of customized e-learning solutions, selected txt2pdf PRO after an extensive review of competing products. "We needed to be able to generate and send printable certificates to our customers.
SANFACE was able to create modifications to the software and customized templates for our use.
The solution allows UNICON to automatically generate PDF files and send them via email. The txt2pdf PRO product enables us to deliver formatted PDF certificates that can easily print on a variety of platforms.
SANFACE was easy to work with and provided excellent support throughout the project.