Ricoh N905306 User Manual

RICOH Printing Systems DDP Server

Database Print Manager

Reference Guide

SOFHA GmbH

Version 2.1

N905306

Preface

Welcome to Database Print Manager (DPM)! DPM is the variable data printing solution of the DDP Server printing system. DPM is described in the following manuals:

• DDP Server User Guide – describing the inst al l at i on and gi vi n g an

overview of all DDP Server components

• Database Print Manager Reference Guide – this manual

The DPM reference guide is stored in machine readable form (PDF format) on the DDP Server CD-ROM. You may print it for use with your DDP Server.

The following conventions are used in this manual:

• Dialogs and functions to be selected by the user are referenced in

this style.

• Some user interface elements are denoted by a path. For example,

View » Template refers to the dialog obtained by selecting the menu View and the menu item Template.

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 trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in

the U.S.A. and other countries. Quark and QuarkXPress are (registered) trademarks of Quark, Incorporated in

the U.S.A. and other countries. All other company and product names are (registered) trademarks of the

respective owners. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information

contained in this document, SOFHA GmbH shall not be held responsible for any inaccuracies it may contain.

All specifications are subject to change without notice.

Contents

Preface.......................................................................................................................................ii

General 1

Database Print Manager Overview............................................................................................1

Prerequisites...............................................................................................................................1

DPM Installation........................................................................................................................2

Basic Steps.................................................................................................................................2

Database Source.........................................................................................................................2

Template and control file...........................................................................................................2

Tags and Field Names ...............................................................................................................3

Images........................................................................................................................................3

Paragraph reflow........................................................................................................................3

Creating a DPM Template 4

Preparing a Database .................................................................................................................4

Creating a DPM 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

Distribution by E-Mail.............................................................................................................18

Glossary 19

Database Print Manager Reference Contents • i

General

Database Print Manager Overview

Database Print Manager (DPM) is the variable data printing solution of the DDP Server printing system. It is designed to be simple to install and operate, compatible with widely used word processing and database applications, and a constructive document tool for digital office, production, print for pay and graphic design users.

Using DPM enables you to personalize documents by performing text and image substitution. It automatically inserts variable data such as customer names, addresses, sentences and pictures within documents based on the DPM template.

A template consists of static elements (text, graphics and images), and tags («tag») that represent placeholders for variable data. A personalized document is the result of merging the template and the variable data. These documents have varying content and static content. This provides for a variable look and message for each document.

Prerequisites

Real world applications that use personalized documents include direct mailings, brochures, transactional documents such as invoices, tickets and coupons, handbooks, manuals and any document that requires custom content. Personalized 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 management. You can take personalized documents and add a job ticket, overlay a company logo or a business address using the e-Forms capability, or submit a personalized document to a special finishing queu e. In this way, you have the option to leverage other DDP Server features to further enhance your printing results.

To design templates DPM works with any software application such as Microsoft Word and Quark QuarkXPress. DPM is currently a Windows only application.

DPM runs on Windows 98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP clients. The system RAM requirement is a minimum of 64 MB (recommended: 128 MB). A printer driver for a DDP Server must be installed.

Before Database Print Manager (DPM) can be used it must be installed at the user’s client workstation. Also required is Adobe Acrobat 5.0 or 6.0.

Database Print Manager Reference General • 1

DPM Installation

Basic Steps

Database Source

DPM is installed during the DDP Server installation. See the DDP Server User Guide for details of the installation.

The basic workflow steps for using DPM are as follows:

1. Select or create a database to use with DPM

2. Create a DPM template using your favorite application

3. Launch DPM to edit and preview the template with merged data

4. Add a form or finishing options to the DPM print job (optional)

5. Print the DPM job

A database is used to store data to populate a DPM document and personalize it. Typically this data is customer demographic information and images. For use with DPM the database can be locally stored or located on a network server.

The types of data supported by DPM include text, graphics and images. Supported graphics/image formats include but are not limit ed to eps, TIFF and jpg.

DPM can connect to a wide array of database sources. DPM supports ODBC drivers allowing 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 any software application (e.g. MS Word),which consists of static elements (text, graphics, and images), and placeholders (tags) for variable elements (text, graphics and images).

A DPM template can be a one or more pages document. For use with DPM, the template must be printed to or saved as a PDF file

(*.pdf). A DPM control file (*.dpm) contains additional information necessary for

creating instances from the template: the database source, information about tags, and layout information.

Template and control file ususally have the same filename and are distinguished only by file type (*.pdf an d *.dpm). Template and control file should be stored in the same folder. They can be moved together to a different location.

2 • General Database Print Manager Reference

Tags and Field Names

A tag in the DPM template represents a placeholder for variable data. A tag is identified by an enclosing marker which may be french brackets like «tag», double brackets like <<tag>>, a single bracket and brace like <{tag}> or a single brace and bracket like {<tag>}. DPM will recognize any of these markers.

The marker must be the same throughout the document, and it mu st be used in the document only to mark tags.

The tag is a name or word that corresponds to a field name of a database. A field name is the column heading of a database field, for example «address» or «client_name». You can insert tags into a document of any software application. For more information about inserting tags see Inserting Tags.

Tags may be qualified as text, number, or date/time. Default is text. Number and date/time allow you to configure DPM’s representation of the tag value if the database delivers it in the respective internal format.

During personalization of the DPM document, text tags are replaced with the text from the corresponding field of the current record of the database.

Images

Vector graphics and bitmap images are handled almost interchangeably by DPM. The only difference is in how they can be selected. See Editing Image Properties. In the following text, the term image (without qualification) will refer to both graphics and images.

Paragraph reflow

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 filenames of images to be used for substitution.

Images should be stored all in the same folder, preferably a folder near the control file.

During personalization, the placeholder image is substituted by the images named in the database field. For example, if the database record contains the filename “house1.eps”, then the placeholder image is substituted by the contents of the file “house1.eps”.

During personalization, paragraphs are automatically reflowed. Th is provides proper alignment and document flow desired by the user. Paragraph reflow is based on:

• the size of the variable data (substituted strings may be shorter or

longer)

• the vertical extent of preceding paragraphs (reflow may cause a

paragraph to shrink or grow by a line)

It is possible to exclude text from reflow, e.g. footer lines of a document. See Editing Paragraph Properties.

In the current DPM version, text will not be reflowed across page boundaries. Also the lines used to draw tables will in general not be resized to match personalized data.

Database Print Manager Reference General • 3

Creating a DPM Template

Preparing a Database

It is recommended to first create and fill in data into a database or identify an existing database to use with a DPM job. Type of data supported by DPM include text strings and graphics or images. Graphics/image formats supported include but are not limited to eps, TIFF and jpg.

After preparing the database, a DPM control file can be created.

Creating a DPM control file

The DPM control file contains additional information needed by DPM to personalize the template document.

To create a DPM control file, launch DPM. DPM shows an empty Settings dialog. Fill in the information required in the dialog.

To fill in the template name, select Browse across from Template, and select the template’s PDF filename.

Choose the 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 across from Image Path. Once the database source has been established, a list of tags is presented. By

default, tags are qualified as text tags. This means that they are used as they appear in the database view.

Qualify tags representing numbers or date/time correspondingly if you want to format them specifically. DPM offers a number of choices for representing numerical values, including 5 digit postal codes and monetary values. DPM also offers a numbers of choices for representing dates and tim es.

4 • Creating a DPM Template Database Print Manager Reference

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