CoolSpools Spool Converter
CoolSpools Spool Converter is product option 1 of the CoolSpools suite.
CoolSpools helps you give your users and customers the right information, at the right time, and, just as importantly, in the right format.
CoolSpools Spool Converter converts system i (AS/400, system i) spooled files to a variety of formats, including:
CoolSpools runs entirely on the system i and does not need a PC to produce PDFs, Excel files etc., though these can then be easily accessed from a PC.
All spooled types supported, including:
Note that many similar products only support simple SCS spooled files and cannot the more complex spooled file types such as AFPDS and IPDS.
Note also that even those products which do support AFP often do so by converting AFP output to a TIFF image and including that in the PDF that is generated. This means that text in the PDF will not be searchable. CoolSpools Spool Converter converts AFP text to PDF text can generates fully searchable PDFs.
CoolSpools Spool Converter also supports:
What's more, CoolSpools Spool Converter doesn't just convert your spooled files, it helps you create and manage the business documents you really need by providing highly flexible but easy to use functions that address real business issues, such as:
Splitting
Split spooled files into multiple documents without the need to change your applications.
For example, if your spooled file is a batch of documents (invoices, statements etc.), you can tell CoolSpools Spool Converter to create a new PDF every time the invoice number or customer number changes etc. You can even tell it to email each separate PDF to a different email address or addresses.
Or maybe you want to convert your sales report to Excel format, but need to put each region's section o the report into a different server directory. No problem: just tell CoolSpools Spool Converter where to find the region code/name on the report and it will create a new spreadsheet every time it changes and store it in a directory name based on the region.
Merging/combining PDFs and Excel files
Maybe you'd like to create a report or document pack containing a set of related documents from different spooled files.
With CoolSpools Spool Converter you can append to an existing PDF when converting a spooled file to PDF.
You can also merge/combined several PDFs with the MRGPDF command.
The PDFs do not have to be CoolSpools-generated PDFs: any PDF will do.
CoolSpools Spools Converter can also append a new worksheet to an existing spreadsheet when converting a spooled file to Excel format.
We know of no other system i product that can do this.
Dropping unwanted lines/pages
If there are certain pages or lines in your spooled file you don' want to include in the output (PDF, Excel etc.), there are several ways to tell CoolSpools what to drop, e.g.by page number, pages at the start, pages at the end, liens or page containing certain text etc. etc.
Controlling file names and output paths
Often, you'll want to give your files a meaningful name, for example including something like the invoice number or order number from inside the document in the name.
CoolSpools Spool Converter has some really flexible and powerful features to help with this. You can use some attribute or combination of attributes of the spooled file, or you can extract data (e.g. invoice number, customer name etc.) from inside the spooled file and use it.
Selecting email recipients
Often you'll want to email different spooled files or parts of spooled files to different people.
CoolSpools Spool Converter has some great features to handle this. Which way is best for you depends on a number of things like where your email addresses are stored and what information there is in the spooled file to identify who the output is intended for. Whatever your needs, we're confident we have an option that suits you.
Include images (background forms, logos etc.) with the need for overlays
If your spooled file is normally printed on preprinted stationery and you want to include that form as a background to you PDF, no problem, CoolSpools Spool Converter makes that a breeze!
Or if you'd like to jazz up your documents with logos, watermarks or other graphics, that too is easy to do with CoolSpools Spool Converter.
All you need is one or more JPEG or GIF images of the graphics or form you want to include. Just tell CoolSpools to build them into your PDF when it converts your spooled file.
There's no need to buy additional software or mess around creating page overlay objects or modifying your print application.
Security
When you create a PDF you can password-protect and encrypt it so only authorized people can open it.
You can also restrict what can be don to the PDF, e.g. preventing it from being modified, printed etc. (with or without a password)
You can also add digital signatures to authenticate PDFs as genuine and to guarantee they have not been tampered with since they were created.
Standards
CoolSpools Spool Converter can optionally produce PDFs that conform to the ISO 19005 PDF/A document archiving standard.
Both Level 1A and Level 1B of the PDF/A standard are supported.
Exit Programs
CoolSpools Spool Converter implements several exit points allowing user-written exit programs to control aspects of its running and do things like override parameters at run time to determine file naming, output paths, passwords, email addresses etc.
This puts you in total control of what CoolSpools does.
Bookmarks/PDF Outlines
When converting a spooled file to PDF, CoolSpools Spool Converter can generate a set of bookmarks from the content of the document to produce an index or set of outlines, making it easy for users to navigate around large documents.
For example, if you have a sales report organized by branch within region, you could produce a two-level index by region name and branch name within region. You users can then go straight to the right page for a region or branch just by clicking on the name in the index.
Excel
Give your users their reports in the format they want them in by converting spooled files to Excel spreadsheets.
Jazz up your reports by adding styles: color, fonts, shading, borders etc. are all supported.
Add conditional formatting, e.g. color high values red and low values green automatically!
XML
Generate XML documents from your spooled file so they can be imported into applications.
Save time re-programming applications.
