Digital File - Automating the Generation of PDF Documents

PortalsXpress includes a couple features that make it easy for you to generate PDF letters, statements, reports, invoices, etc. and deliver those PDF files to the corresponding client's portal. The first feature lets you use PortalsXpress' built-in Inter-Process Communcation command interface to generate and upload a PDF version of any file you're able to print. Two commands relate to this feature:

• --setPrintTarget
  When you issue this command, PortalsXpress disables the "Select Print/Scan Destination" dialog and directs its PDF printer driver to create the file at the specified target path in DocumentManager. The next time a print job is sent to the PortalsXpress PDF Printer, it will be saved to a file at the specified target path. If a file already exists at the specified path, a new one will be created with a unique index appended to it.

  Example: "C:\Program Files\PortalsXpress\PortalsXpress.exe" --setPrintTarget "PortalsXpress Auto-Router~102031 January 2012 Statement.pdf"

• --clearPrintTarget
  When you issue this command, PortalsXpress resets its PDF printer driver. The next time a print job is sent to the PortalsXpress PDF Printer, the user will be shown the "Select Print/Scan Destination" dialog.

  Example: "C:\Program Files\PortalsXpress\PortalsXpress.exe" --clearPrintTarget

Note: the PortalsXpress built-in Inter-Process Communication command interface is exercised most easily by running PortalsXpress.exe. When a secondary instance of PortalsXpress.exe runs, it detects the presence of the primary instance and sends it the command line, then terminates. This is actually pretty fast because of .exe and .dll reference counting; all of the binaries required to run a secondary PortalsXpress.exe instance are already loaded into memory, so all the operating system has to do is create an environment for the secondary process.

The second feature you'll need is called PortalsXpress Auto-Router. See its documentation for more details.

So let's say I have 3,000 statements in MS-Word, one for each of my clients. I can use my favorite scripting language to implement an automation routine with this control flow:

1. Build a filename for the target PDF using the client's ID followed by a description of the statement
   example: "102031 January 2012 Statement.pdf"
2. Exercise "--setPrintTarget" to tell PortalsXpress in which folder to store the print-generated PDF file and what its name will be.
   example: "C:\Program Files\PortalsXpress\PortalsXpress.exe" --setPrintTarget "PortalsXpress Auto-Router~102031 January 2012 Statement.pdf"
3. Tell MS-Word to print the statement to the "PortalsXpress PDF Printer";
4. Repeat steps 1 thru 3 for each statement