Topic: Hylafax

[dswillia]

I am currently running 6.0.1 at my office and my boss wanted to be able to fax from desktop.  I installed hylafax using knuddi's excellent how-to.  I now have the server faxing out using Whfc without a problem.  Now my boss wants to be able to put a custom fax cover  page with each fax, I have tried to create the appropriate postscript file however the variable is the script such as <TO-COMPANY> do not get set with any information before being sent.. I realize this would be a question for the whfc list, however the SME list is much more active and I hope someone might have a pointer for me.

Regards

[kiruxadmin]

I am currently running 6.0.1 at my office and my boss wanted to be able to fax from desktop.  I installed hylafax using knuddi's excellent how-to.  I now have the server faxing out using Whfc without a problem.  Now my boss wants to be able to put a custom fax cover  page with each fax, I have tried to create the appropriate postscript file however the variable is the script such as <TO-COMPANY> do not get set with any information before being sent.. I realize this would be a question for the whfc list, however the SME list is much more active and I hope someone might have a pointer for me.Regards

Create your cover page and your document in a single pdf file.  If you are using MS or any other system you need to create your document using PDF creator. PDF creator allows to "print" to a PDF file. Once you have the PDF file created you can fax it using the Whfc. This file will have your custom cover and the document. You can download the PDF creator from http://www.kirux.net look for free windows sofware section.

[dswillia]

That would work in most situations, however my boss must be difficult, we use a invoiceing software that he currently uses winfax with, he tells it to fax and it allows him to create the coverpage, Whfc says it will let you do this, with the billing software we cannot create a page natively

[kiruxadmin]

That would work in most situations, however my boss must be difficult, we use a invoiceing software that he currently uses winfax with, he tells it to fax and it allows him to create the coverpage, Whfc says it will let you do this, with the billing software we cannot create a page natively

PDF creator allows you to "print" to a PDF file from any Windows aplication. PDF Creator works very similar to print destiller from adobe. PDF Creator creates a pseudo printer that can be accessed from any application under Windows. At time of printing you will have the option to choose printers, among your other printers PDF creator will be there.

[NickR]

dswillia

I have a client with a similar system to yours & I found   SalsaFax to be a perfect solution.  You will need to do some messing about with custom templates, but it's trivial.

Basically, you set up a printer & print to it.  Salsafax looks for the fax number in the document & faxes it.  Couldn't be easier & is extremely reliable.

[dswillia]

Well I broke down and learned a lil more about postscript than I wanted to, however I was able to get Whfc to create a dynamic Coverpage based on who sent it and to where they sent it.  It incorporates date and comments.  This is all done via the hylafax client with no need to create multiple pdf.

[stefan24]

Tell us more about your solution or write a complete howto  

[dswillia]

Forgive me for the long post, but this is how I accomplished getting WHFC to create a dynmaic coverpage propogated with the correcting sending information.  I could have accomplished this with Kiruxadmins suggestion, however I felt it was too many steps to send a fax, and my coworkers would probably just print and fax like they use too.  I compiled most this information from diffrent hylafax lists.

1.  Create a Postscript template of how you would like your coverpage to look.  I used Adobe Framemaker to create my fax template.  In the template file I created several fields such a TO: to-XXXXXXXX (note that in the template I placed to-XXXXXX to mark the position of where I wanted whfc to put my dynamic content.  This is important later on.)

2.  I then created a fake printer on my wind0ze box using the built in "Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600" driver.  This is a true Postscript driver.  When asked what port to connect to, be sure to tell it to "Print to File".  After creating the postscript print goto the printer properties --> General --> Printing Preferences --> Advanced.  Under the "PostScript" area, find where it has the setting for PostScript Output Option... Change it to "EPS" and then apply it and "ok" out.

3.  Print your template file to the postscript printer, this will save a file on your computer "filename.prn".  Once you have located the file, change the extention from .prn to .ps.

4.  Ok now the fun part.. Editing the raw postscript file...  The postscript file is all alphanumeric, there a several things we have to adjust in it to make whfc and hylafax work with it.  The first thing we need to do is add the following lines to the top of the file:

1 setlinejoin
/nullstring () def
/IS {
    dup where {
   pop
   load dup nullstring ne {S} {pop} ifelse
    } {pop} ifelse
} bind def
/AL {
    dup where {
   pop
   load dup nullstring ne {S 0 -20 translate} {pop} ifelse
    } {pop} ifelse
} bind def
/M  { moveto } bind def /S { show  } bind def
/R { rmoveto } bind def /L { lineto } bind def
/B { newpath 0 0 M 0 1 L 1 1 L 1 0 L closepath } bind def
/CS { closepath stroke } bind def

To be honest I don't know if it has to be in any certain spot, however I inserted mine in the top between the first 2 sets of author comments.

Now to hunt down our variables.  Do a search in the document for to-xxxxxx  you should come to a line that looks somewhat like this:

1600 1003 M (xxx)[54 54  0]xS
The "1600 1003 M" are for the absolute place ment of the text and must stay.  However we no longer need "(xxx)[54 54  0]xS[/b]"  we will replace that with the variable switch for hylafax that will insert the "TO:" information.  The switch we us is /to IS.  So our edited line will read:

1600 1003 M /to IS

You can continue to replace all the field using the diffrent switches that hylafax supports.  A list of these can be found here:

http://www.hylafax.org/man/faxcover.html

5.  Once you have completed this, save the file, tell whfc to use it as your default coverpage on the client machine and give it a shot.

This have worked flawlessly for 2 days with over 200 faxes sent.  Let me know if I wasn't clear on anything.

Regards