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What's New in CoolSpools V5?
For full details,
download or read the online
User Guide.
If you're familiar with previous versions of CoolSpools command, you may wonder how the latest version (Version 5) differs from what you've seen before. The answer is: a lot!
Version 5 of CoolSpools adds many major new features.
Highlights include:
· CoolSpools API
CoolSpools now provides an API for easier integration with your applications.
· New command interfaces
New format-specific commands (CVTSPLPDF for PDF, CVTSPLXLS for Excel etc.) simplify, streamline and rationalize parameter definition.
· TOSTMF (*FTP) option
Output stream files by FTP directly to a server (e.g. UNIX or Windows).
· PDF merge and STMFOPT(*ADD) support with PDF
The new MRGPDF command and the Merge API allow you to merge one or more existing PDFs into a single PDF. This includes PDFs created by applications other than CoolSpools. This functionality is used internally to provide support for STMFOPT(*ADD) in conjunction with TOFMT(*PDF), which was previously not allowed.
The ability to merge PDFs is, to our knowledge, unique among iSeries PDF generators.
· Improved Excel output
The CVTSPLXLS command and the CVTSPLSTMF command when used with the EXCEL(*NEW) parameter employ an improved method for deciding how to allocate text in the spooled file to columns in an Excel spreadsheet.
Other improvements to Excel output include: BIFF8-compatible output, control over the font used in the spreadsheet, improved column formatting, the ability to exclude page and column headings automatically, improved national language support and much more.
· Support for *LINE and *AFPDSLINE spooled files
CoolSpools can now convert *LINE and *AFPDSLINE spooled files.
· Support for *USERASCII spooled files (HP PCL format)
CoolSpools can now convert *USERASCII spooled files where the spooled file content is in HP PCL format (which is normally the case).
The new RTVPCLRSC (Retrieve PCL Resources) command allows PCL resources such as soft fonts and macros to be retrieved from a PCL spooled file and saved for later use when converting spooled files that refer to those resources.
· Nested bookmarks
The new CVTSPLPDF command supports the definition of multiple bookmark strings to be used to generate a nested (hierarchical) bookmark structure.
· New color names and user-definable colors
The CVTSPLPDF, CVTSPLHTML and CVTSPLRTF commands support the entire range of color names normally supported in HTML by browsers. The CVTSPLSTMF command has been modified to support a subset of this full list.
In addition, the COLOR parameter now allows the specification of user-defined colors in the form of an RGB (Red Green Blue) color number, similar to color numbers that can be used in HTML.
· CVTSPLSPLF (Convert Spooled File to Spooled Files)
Allows one or more new spooled files to be created from an existing spooled file. Supports exclusion of unwanted pages, splitting based on various criteria etc.
Version 4 of CoolSpools added the following significant enhancements:
Major performance improvements
 | Conversions now run at least 2-3 times faster than before |
Email support
| CoolSpools integrates with Communiqué to provide built-in email capabilities |
Improved HTML output
| New TOFMT(*HTMLCSS) option generates HTML with Cascading Stylesheet features for improved presentation quality |
Additional barcode types supported
| CoolSpools now supports all commonly used barcode formats |
Version 3 of CoolSpools added a number of major new features.
New spooled file splitting options
| Maybe you’d like to start a new PDF file each time the customer number in your report changes, or every time the page number in the report is reset to 1? |
| Now you can, using the new SPLIT(*POS) option and the new SPLITPOS parameter, or SPLIT(*KEY) with the enhanced SPLITKEY parameter. |
| Splitting can also be specified as occurring before the split point or after the split point. |
Splitting works with file formats other than PDF
| The facility to split a single spooled file into multiple stream files is now available for all file formats, except TOFMT(*SAV) and TOFMT(*TIFF), not just TOFMT(*PDF). |
Password protection and encryption of PDFs
| You can now protect PDF files with passwords that must be entered before the file can be opened. |
| Password protected PDFs are encrypted using Adobe’s recommended encryption scheme. |
| "User" and "Owner" passwords can be defined. |
| Control over "User" rights to copy text, print the file etc. |
Multiple exit program parameters
| Previously only a single user-definable parameter could be extracted from the spooled file and passed to the exit program. |
| Now, up to 100 parameters defined by position and up to 50 parameters extracted by key can be passed. |
| A new exit program parameter list format is defined to accommodate this. |
Additional exit programs
| In previous releases, only a single exit point was available where a user-definable exit program could be called - at the completion of each stream file. |
| Now you can also define exit programs to be called: at the end of each page of a stream file; and at the end of the entire spooled file. |
Excluded pages
| Does your spooled file contain batch header sheets or other unwanted pages? Do they make your PDF look untidy? |
| Now you can specify that certain pages should be excluded from the output, either by page number at the start or end of the spooled file, by page number at the start or end of the stream file, or by the occurrence on the page of a given key string. |
Additional barcode formats supported
| Previously CoolSpools supported Code-3-of-9 and Code-128 barcodes. |
| Now Interleaved 2-of-5 and PostNet are also supported. |
Performance improvements
| Some performance improvements have been achieved compared with previous versions. |
| Although these are not dramatic, users should see some improvement in performance in most circumstances.. |
Paper sizes
| Version 1.0 of CVTSPLSTMF supported only A4 landscape. |
| CVTSPLSTMF now supports the following standard paper sizes: A4, A5, Letter, Legal and Executive, in portrait or landscape mode. |
| If that's not enough, there's also a custom page size option that allows you to use any paper size you want. |
Fonts
| Version 1.0 of CVTSPLSTMF supported only Courier 10 point font. |
| CVTSPLSTMF now supports Courier, Helvetica, Times Roman, Symbol and Zapf Dingbats fonts. |
| The iSeries fonts used in your report are automatically mapped to an equivalent PC font. |
| Where this does not give acceptable results, you can define default fonts. |
| To further improve the presentation of your report in PDF or HTML, you can define your own font mappings, telling CVTSPLSTMF which PC font to substitute for a given iSeries font |
| More here |
Support for AFP and IPDS spooled files
| AFP and IPDS spooled files can be read |
| Multiple fonts per document supported |
| Line graphics implemented |
| Page segments and overlays included |
| IOCA and GOCA graphics supported |
| More here |
PDF and HTML color
| Color in your spooled file is reflected in your PDF or HTML files. |
| You can add color to black-and-white reports by specifying text and background colors to replace black and white. |
| More here |
PDF Data Compression
| Spooled file data in PDF files is now compressed. This significantly reduces the size of the generated stream files, and thus reduces the size of archives and e-mails and improves PDF load times. |
| More here |
Web-optimized PDF
| CVTSPLSTMF now creates PDF files which are structured ("linearized") to give the best possible load times over the Internet or a WAN. Improvements can be impressive. |
| More here |
Report Splitting
| CVTSPLSTMF now has the ability to split a single spooled file into several separate pdf files. Perhaps you have an application which creates a single spooled file containing invoices for a number of customers. You can now ask CVTSPLSTMF to split the spooled file into separate pdf files for each customer. You can ask for splitting to occur every n pages, or every time a specified keyword appears in the spooled file. |
| More here |
Exit Programs
| You can now instruct CVTSPLSTMF to call a user-written exit program at various points in the processing of a spooled file |
| The exit program is passed one of two standard set of parameters, including one or many strings of text extracted from the spooled file according to criteria that you define. |
| More here |
Now click here for details of the latest features in Version 3.