eSysOut, a new link in the automated publications chain, provides electronic viewable files that are Internet/Intranet ready in a matter of minutes.

The eSysOut Link - What is It?

The Problem: How can my existing line printer report data (sysout) be automatically processed into electronic viewable formats? Can this be accomplished without changing anything on the existing system? Can bookmarking and linking criteria be utilized? Can this electronic output replace microfiche? Can the files be used on the Internet / Intranet?

The Process: eSysOut provides high volume computer users with a powerful production tool to automatically create electronic viewable pages in Adobe PDF formats and Adobe PostScript for high resolution printing. Existing legacy data reports can be produced in minutes. Most reports will run at a rate of at least 10,000 pages on a 1.5GHz machine.

Users have complete control over their page look including the selection of bookmarks and links. eSysOut reads the requested data files, reads the style sheet and processes that data into the user requested file format. This output file can then be automatically routed to the user's required destination.

Capabilities

Specific output file formats allow use of cutting edge technology when creating electronic viewable files. Adobe PDF option enables eSysOut to create the following:

• Bookmarks - up to the maximum of 9 levels can be defined by the style sheets.
• Links - dynamic references from one specific location to another.
• Fonts - unlimited use of Adobe outline fonts is permitted.
• Overlays - user can add overlays to the PDF output when required.
• File Splitting - user can control where and when a huge input file might be split into multiple outputs.
• Color - user may produce color output on certain data fields of choice.
• Auxiliary Files - user has optional choice of creating other output files, i.e. indexes.
• Multiple Output - user has optional choice of producing PDF, PS and XML simultaneously.

Through the use of created PDF files, your existing pages can now be viewed as you choose, the data content can be searched by bookmarks and Adobe search criteria, it can be selectively printed and used by others as needed.

Common Applications

• Management Reports - sales activity reports, shipments, billings and receivables are typical.
• Financial Reports - budgets, actual vs. projected, etc.
• Parts Lists - bills of material and inventory items are the typical usage.
• Proofing - simply reviewing data for a work-in-progress is valuable.
• Bills - actual bills produced as second off in electronic form.
• Archives - any reports currently being produced for com recording can now be written to CD's.

Style Sheet

eSysOut users create a style sheet using simple English. This style sheet is established once and utilized many times in production.

Definition of bookmarks, links, fonts, forms, and artwork details are all examples of items that are defined by a style sheet.

Platforms

eSysOut is available for the following platforms:

• Intel PC with Microsoft Windows family.
• Sun Sparc with Sun Solaris.
• IBM Mainframe with OS/390 family.

All eSysOut versions may be run with optional data management systems, yielding more choices for a user in terms of routing viewable files.

Rewards

eSysOut can benefit the user by providing an exact electronic version of a previously printed page. Savings of up to 4 cents per page is typical. This simple multiplier for sites that produce thousands of pages per day becomes significant very quickly.

Benefits other than paper savings include:

• Automatic Bookmarking
• High Speed Page Production
• User makes no change in data streams
• Searchable Data
• Instant Distribution
• Remote Distribution
• Hardware Independent
• Compressed Data Format

eSysOut Samples

Security Symbol Report
The file NDM.PDF is an activity report organized by Security Symbol in alphabetical order. Under each symbol is information sorted in time-of-day order. The Style File specifies three levels of bookmarks; levels two and three are hidden. They are not visible when the file is opened under Reader or Acrobat. The first level bookmarks are the twenty-six alphabetic characters. Click the plus sign in the box leftward from an alphabetic character and the second level bookmarks will appear. The first time hack on each page of a symbol's data is a third level bookmark.

The pages under the alphabetic character "A" have been extracted in the interest of a more compact file for this sample.

Bill Sponsor Reports
The eSysOut program has the facility to split long files into a number of smaller files. File splitting and naming are based on input data. The samples shown are six files from a total of 223 files generated in this case.

The report is of Bill Sponsors. Sponsors are Senators, Members of the House of Representatives or Committees of either body. The lines in data that figure in both of these functions are colored blue in the PDF files shown.

• HCEP.PDF
• HCGO.PDF
• HM115.PDF
• SCFP.PDF
• SCJU.PDF
• SM13.PDF

The extracted file names are very long and hence cumbersome to use. The blue line on the first page of each split document is the extracted name for the document. The file name is the substituted name.

Allowance Equipage List
The file AELS.PDF was composed from a DJDE file. Fonts used and overlays merged are specified in data. Note that the form on which data are composed appears only once in the PDF file. It is used on every page in the job.

The form used here was created by Pagetec's POLYGEN program, an easy to use utility that simplifies the creation of Versacomp Overlays for use with the eSysOut Program.

Send us your data files and we will return the PDF file generated by
eSysOut.