background image

RICOH Printing Systems DDP Server 

Database Print Manager 

Reference Guide 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

SOFHA GmbH 

Version 2.1 

N905306 

 

Summary of Contents for Database Print Manager

Page 1: ...RICOH Printing Systems DDP Server Database Print Manager Reference Guide SOFHA GmbH Version 2 1 N905306 ...

Page 2: ...dialog obtained by selecting the menu View and the menu item Template Copyright 1999 2004 SOFHA GmbH Germany Version 2 1 1 Dec 2004 SOFHA POD Server ProfiRIP SOFHA DocuFLOW and DocXPLORER are registered trademarks of SOFHA GmbH Germany Adobe Acrobat and PostScript are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the U S A and other countries Microsoft and Windows are registered trademark...

Page 3: ...PM control file 4 Selecting a Database Source 5 Creating a Template Document 7 Inserting Tags 7 Saving the Template file as PDF 7 Viewing and printing a DPM Template 8 Opening a DPM Control File 8 The DPM Window 9 DPM Settings 10 Viewing the Database 11 Editing a Template 12 Editing Image Properties 13 Editing paragraph properties 14 Previewing Documents 16 Printing 17 Printing Options 17 Distribu...

Page 4: ......

Page 5: ...es tickets and coupons handbooks manuals and any document that requires custom content Person alized documents are important to relationship marketing and other business communication activities DPM is a workflow tool designed to enhance output productivity and be easy to use for any document application DPM works together with other DDP Server applications such as e Forms and imposition managemen...

Page 6: ... it to have compatibility with popular database applications A partial list of databases that can connect to DPM includes the latest versions of Microsoft Access MS SQL Server MS Visual FoxPro FoxPro Files MS Excel Corel Paradox Oracle Database and other ODBC compliant databases To connect to a database see Selecting a Database Source Template and control file A template is a document created in a...

Page 7: ...term image without qualification will refer to both graphics and images To obtain variable images an image has to be inserted as placeholder into the template document The position and space occupied by the placeholder image will be used by the variable images substituted for it A placeholder image must be marked within DPM with a field name from the database The database field must contain filena...

Page 8: ...he marker used in the template To fill in a database select Browse across from Database For further information see Selecting a Database Source If the database contains more than one table select the table to be used by DPM To refine the database selection click Manual query and enter an SQL query manually To return to a simple query click Automatic query To fill in the image path select Browse ac...

Page 9: ...ect Data Source from Windows so you can select the correct database driver and give the database a name for future connections If a data source has been created during a previous DPM print job for example demodata click on the data source filename Click OK to return to DPM If your type of data source is listed e g Microsoft Access database click on the entry and select OK In the file selection dia...

Page 10: ...select Next Then select Finish Select the database file and provide a name and location Click OK Select the database name from Machine Data Source Click OK to return to DPM The path for the database has now been established and connected DPM to the target database 6 Creating a DPM Template Database Print Manager Reference ...

Page 11: ...unded by the chosen markers Note Fast switching between Windows applications can be done by holding the ALT key and clicking TAB Typographic attributes of the tag like font type and size will be taken over for its replacement during substitution A change of typographic attributes within a tag will be ignored To insert an image tag insert the image at the desired position and scale it to take the s...

Page 12: ...rk on a DPM job Settings this establishes and shows the control information for a DPM job Database this shows the contents of the selected database Template this shows the template and allows to check and modify the markup of text and image elements Preview this shows the template personalized with data from the database and allows to step through the records These dialogs can be selected from the...

Page 13: ...ognized from the Acrobat tool bar which is then visible The Acrobat tool bar allows among others the following operations Zoom into or out of the document this can be done by using the zoom tool by clicking on the buttons for predefined zoom levels fit window actual size fit window width or by entering a zoom factor at the bottom of the window Go to other pages of the document first last previous ...

Page 14: ...o enter information for the control file of the DPM job the filename of the template the marker used to distinguish tags the access information for the database the path used for variable images the qualification of tags For more details see Creating a DPM control file 10 Viewing and printing a DPM Template Database Print Manager Reference ...

Page 15: ...uirements The database interface displays field names and data records to be used by the DPM job It is recommended to check and make sure all data entries exist and are correct Use the scroll bars to move to the desired data entry or cell You can select Extras Refresh Database to synchronize with the latest database information Database Print Manager Reference Viewing and printing a DPM Template 1...

Page 16: ...text alignments mark images for replacement and perform an automatic paragraph analysis on the template You may want to use Preview before editing a template This allows you to check if the variable data elements are substituted correctly If not then using the Template interface and editing tools can correct such problems For more details see Previewing Documents 12 Viewing and printing a DPM Temp...

Page 17: ...o mark the image for a fixed position The attribute Fixed position prevents that the image is moved depending on the vertical extent of preceding paragraphs Clear underlying image s attributes this clears any tag previously associated with the selected image and allows to reassign a tag Clear last image s attributes this undoes the last association of a tag with an image Clear all image s attribut...

Page 18: ... and has the shape of a marked text with an arrow To edit a paragraph drag to draw a rectangle around it The selected text will be highlighted by an enclosing box If the wrong amount of text is highlighted redraw the rectangle Right click on the selected text This opens a context menu with the following operations Properties this allows to select the alignment and to assign a line spacing for the ...

Page 19: ...he text flow in the paragraph Only the left and right boundaries can be adjusted The top and bottom boundaries are managed completely by DPM The text box snaps to predefined points like boundaries of other text boxes To avoid this snapping hold the CTRL key while dragging To show more details about the document structure click the Text tool again DPM will additionally show word boundaries If a tex...

Page 20: ...nalized documents click the navigation buttons in the preview bar or select Extras First Previous Next Last record This will show the respective personalized document To step through the pages of the current personalized document click on the navigation buttons first previous next last page in the Acrobat tool bar You can scale the view by the zoom tools in the Acrobat tool bar Preview is the last...

Page 21: ...ard printing tasks such as selecting the number of pages or copies to print or finishing options to enhance the print job For details see Printing Options Printing Options In the Print dialog you may execute standard printing tasks such as selecting the number of pages or copies to print For a DPM job you may select the first and last document instance to be printed You may enhance the print job w...

Page 22: ...database Make sure all entries are valid E Mail addresses like a user company com Select select the first and last document instance to be sent Enter the subject of the E Mail Enter the name to be used for the attachment file The attachment will be a PDF file containing the personalized document as shown in DPM s preview mode Select a text file for the body of the E Mail If you don t want to inclu...

Page 23: ...erformed in different ways on the client workstation and on the RIP to maximize performance ODBC Open database connectivity A protocol used for linking applications to databases PDF Portable document format PDF differs from PostScript by being less device dependent page independent and easily to view on many platforms Personalized printing s variable data printing Placeholder s tag PostScript Page...

Page 24: ...ase A database consists of records e g for John Smith Alan Miller etc and columns e g FirstName LastName During VDP the template is combined with each database record to produce an instance document In the instance document each placeholder is replaced with the value of the corresponding column E g FirstName is replaced successively with John Alan etc VDP Variable data printing 20 Glossary Databas...

Reviews: