This option was added in response to a number of customer requests to enable the sending of documents by e-mail to their forwarders, customers, commission agents etc., as an alternative to
the faxing of documents either through their computer, or printing to the printer and then using a stand-alone fax machine.
The time savings are immense and this has now become the
defacto standard for issuing documents.
Our original choice was to use the Portable Network Graphics file format (PNG), which needed a freely available viewer program, but this is an executable and in the current climate such files are routinely stripped from emails thus making their creation and sending a worthless exercise. The size was reasonably small at 30K per page and would obviously save considerably over faxing as the table below demonstrates this quite effectively.
This
originally provided the breakthrough with the ease of sending documents by e-mail and this procedure has now been taken up with a vengeance, but the
potential removal of the viewer meant documents could be unintelligible for
the recipient and we now recommend the use of a windows printer driver which outputs files in Adobe Acrobat format. The original recommendation was FinePrint 2000 or PDFfactory, both
utilities are available from Software Partners (www.software-partners.co.uk). This should be installed and become available in the drop down list of printers in Formwise the next time the program is loaded after the printer
was installed.
The latest version of PDFfactory creates a multi-page file document accessible from the taskbar, and whilst still open, it is possible to add prints from
another Windows applications, such as Word and Excel
etc., and with the availability of a button to be clicked to Send the
documents. This routine calls your email software, creates a blank message with the file as an attachment so you can add a message and determine the recipients.
This is an excellent way of getting documents to an external contact, but some users have found that to avoid transcription errors it is better to send a message as plain text, which the recipient can then cut and paste into his internal systems. To do this there is an icon on the Browse/Amend/Create consignment tab -
- the Outlook icon - which can create such a message. The system can be modified to create the message of your choice consisting of titles and the relevant data and can be to a fixed email address. If you need one setting up for your organisation's specific requirements, then please contact us on the Support Line.
- the Outlook icon - which can create such a message. The system can be modified to create the message of your choice consisting of titles and the relevant data and can be to a fixed email address. If you need one setting up for your organisation's specific requirements, then please contact us on the Support Line.
PrintingDocumentsForEmail - 290919