About
Visual Software
Privacy Statement for Visual Software
Visual Software, 1 October 2001
We have created this privacy statement in order to
demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following
discloses the information gathering and dissemination practices
for the Visual Software web site at
http://www.visual.co.uk
Information Automatically Logged
We use your IP address to help identify you and your
shopping cart, diagnose problems with our server, and to
administer our Web site.
Cookies
Our site uses cookies to keep track of your shopping cart
and progress through our site. Cookies are simple text files
exchanged between your Internet browser software and our web
server. They contain no malicious code at all and are not passed
on to other web sites.
Advertisers
We use an outside advertising company
bCentral
to display banner advertisements on our web site. These
advertisements may contain cookies. While we use cookies in
other parts of our web site, cookies received with banner
advertisements are collected by our advertisement company, and
we do not have access to this information.
Registration and Order Forms
Our site's registration forms requests users to give us
contact information (like their name, e-mail, and postal
address), and demographic information (like their zip code).
This information is optional and does not have to be supplied.
Information from our registration forms is used to return
general marketing and sales information about our company and
products. Information from our order forms is used to ship
purchases and get in touch with the customer when necessary.
Financial information collected by our order forms is used
solely to bill the user for products and services. Users may
opt-out of receiving future mailings; see the Choice/Opt-out
section below.
External Links
This site contains links to other sites. Visual Software is
not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such
Web sites.
Security
This site has security measures in place to protect the
loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our
control. Company and personal information held by us is covered
by the
Data Protection Act under English Law.
Choice/Opt-out, Data Quality/Access
You can opt-out of receiving promotional or marketing
information from our partners, and from us, request the change
or modification of information previously provided by contacting
us using any of the methods at the bottom of this page.
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Here's our Year 2000 statement
1 October 1998 (revised 13 September 2001)
"We can state that to the best of our knowledge and testing
so far, versions of Forms Electric v1.2, Visual PCL v1.1,
Pcl2pdf v2.5 or later will not be adversely affected by the
advent of the new millennium or leap year issues. These products
do not use any dates or date handling logic internally other
than that provided by the standard Windows or other Operating
System file handling APIs. Should any such date related problems
be discovered and be attributed to these products, we undertake
to investigate and solve them if possible, as quickly as we can
and with no cost to the customer.
For details regarding LaserFAX or JetPCL please contact
Tech
Know Systems Ltd.
We are unable to comment on the Year 2000 worthiness of
Fantasia PC as this product is owned and developed by JetForm
UK. To get further information on this product we recommend that
you contact JetForm Corporation direct." |
Case Studies
Here are a few case studies from customers who are using our
products to good effect. If you would like more details or would
like to contact the persons or companies direct please let us
know. Of course, if you would like to submit your own case study
we'd be pleased to hear from you!
Bottomline Technologies using the PCL2PDF Developer
Library
"... I just thought you'd like to know that today we've cut
over to the new version of our
PayView product, which uses your latest PCL2PDF32 product.
This will allow us to cease using a 3rd party product to
apply PDF passwords. In addition, we no longer have to ship a
copy of full Adobe® Acrobat® with PayView, thus saving us that
cost.
Thanks for your help and assistance with your fine product
..."
Bottomline's PayView module packages all forms output
produced by the
PayBase Payment engine in industry standard PDF (Portable
Document Format) format for electronic archival, retrieval and
forms delivery. Viewing these replicas becomes more convenient
and secure for recipients, as they no longer must wait for paper
copies to be produced. The premier electronic warehousing
solution replaces manual forms storage and paper transport with
automated, e-commerce technology.
Bottomline Technologies (NASDAQ: EPAY) is a global provider
of Web-enabled billing, payment and electronic banking software
and services for the business-to-business marketplace.
Bottomline was founded in 1989 and we have grown into a global
organization of over 550 employees worldwide. We maintain our
corporate headquarters in Portsmouth, NH and international
headquarters in Reading, England. Bottomline also has satellite
offices located in most major cities.
Boeing Satellite Systems (Hughes Space and
Communications) using PCL2PDF for Unix
"... Boeing Space choose to use Pcl2pdf to simplify the
process of converting datasheets to PDF for a number of reasons.
Programming costs far exceeded the cost of the product.
Datasheets require extensive validation, that would not be
needed if we continued to use the same software programs.
Vaulted versions of reports could be re-released in PDF
format without a formal engineering review for accuracy. These
datasheets are a set of complex reports with numerous formatting
complexities to compact data that once took tens of thousands of
pages into a set of reports that now take only 1100-1400 pages.
By converting them to PDF we can carry them into meetings and on
travel to remote locations with the aid of a floppy disk in many
cases. Furthermore, we can publish these reports internally on
our web site for adhoc access from our many remote offices. All
this from a product that costs around $1,000. Not bad! ..."
Christopher Myers
Hughes Space and Communications
April 2001
Marshall Aerospace using PCL2PDF on Compaq Non-Stop
Tandem
"... For ninety years the name Marshall has been associated
with engineering excellence at Cambridge. The company entered
into aviation in 1929 and has developed its Cambridge facility
ever since. With a turnover of over £100 million per annum,
Marshall Aerospace is one of the largest privately owned
aerospace companies in the world.
Most of the computer systems at Marshall Aerospace Ltd have
been developed using our in house development staff on a Compaq
Non-Stop (Tandem) platform. We decided to base our redevelopment
on Web based technology which allows us to retain our investment
in legacy systems whilst making the client side of the
application available to Web browsers, thus allowing us to
integrate with any number of different systems very easily.
With the advent of our new Web based development it became
apparent very early on that we could now try to address the
Print Preview issue. Obviously PDF (Portable Document Format)
was a favourite from the start given its acceptance as a
universally acceptable document format. Our application outputs
to a PCL format, so we needed a product that could run on the
Compaq Non-Stop Server that would convert the PCL output to PDF.
The PCL2PDF product supplied by Visual Software made this
possible. The Print Preview facility strangely enough took the
spotlight in the eyes of our users as the most useful feature in
the new Web based application ..."
Fuji Xerox Australia with the Sydney 2000 Project using
PCL2PDF
"... We carry out two mission-critical roles at the Sydney
2000 Games, working with the organising committee (SOCOG).
The first is to print results at the competition and
non-competition venues. This is carried out in conjunction with
Swatch and IBM. The former provides the scoring and timing, the
latter provides the computers, networks, results applications,
etc. We provide the high speed printers.
Numbers vary from venue to venue. The smallest will have 2
(always one extra for contingency). the largest will have 28.
The printers to be used are Xerox 265ST, a 65 page per minute
printer. We built an application in conjunction with IBM to
manage the print files and distribute them across the printers
at a venue. The application receives 1 pcl file, and creates as
many copies as needed to satisfy the requirements. There can be
up to 10 client groups (press, broadcasters, etc) and the print
quantities can vary from 10 to 2000 for each report. Large print
jobs are split into smaller chunks and fed to multiple printers.
The goal being to produce the required quantity of paper and
distribute it within a short (predetermined) time period.
The second is to produce results books. These books are
produced at the conclusion of a sport and contain a selection of
the reports produced above. Typically, these will be start
lists, results lists, medallists, etc. There will 37 books,
ranging from 30 pages for archery to 380 pages for athletics. We
plan on producing approximately 50,000 bound books using 5 Xerox
6135 publishing systems. We will have 2 results-book print
rooms. We have 3 time-windows to complete the books for each
sport. These are 24, 48 and 72 hours after the sport completes.
This is where we use PCL2PDF. The print files are all in
pcl5e format. Our workflow has the files being converted to pdf
automatically as they arrive using your software. Then, using
the ISI toolbox, we assemble the PDFs into an electronic book
which is proofed and then "production-printed" ..."
Compusource Corporation using PCL2PDF
"... Founded in 1971, Compusource has evolved into a leading
developer and marketer of application software, computer
equipment, and training/support programs for several markets
including service contractors, metal distribution and moving and
storage. Headquartered in La Palma, CA, with a branch office in
the San Francisco bay area, Compusource has built its reputation
by providing high-performance, multi-user business systems that
run on multiple hardware platforms and leading operating systems
including, Unix, Windows NT, Windows 95/98.
Recently Compusource began looking for a way to allow
customers to email their standard forms (for example: invoices,
quotes and purchase orders) as an alternative to printing. In
addition to a faster delivery of important information,
resulting in quicker payments and material delivery, this would
also provide significant cost and labor savings.
There were several important considerations. The resulting
documents had to look professional and they had to be easily
viewable and printable by the recipient no matter what email
system they were using. The solution also had to be able to work
both in Unix and Windows since Compusource's products run on
both platforms.
To solve the problem of a professional look along with
universal compatibility, they decided that industry standard PDF
(Portable Document Format) provided the best features. Since
Compusource was already supporting graphic overlays on HP
LaserJet compatible printers, it was determined that the
simplest route to PDF would be to convert the current LaserJet
(PCL) output. For this function, Visual Software's PCL2PDF
product was chosen both for its support of all of the necessary
platforms and for its ability to create true PDF files with
accessible text instead of graphic only files.
Compusource can now provide a seamless and invisible
solution that allows their customers to communicate quickly, and
professionally through electronic mail ..."
Lance Peterson
Manager of Research and Development
Compusource
Corporation
January 2000
Evisions, Inc. using PCL2PDF
"... Visual Software's Pcl2pdf technology was crucial in
helping us save time and expense in developing our own product.
To accomplish the same results in-house would have pushed us out
of our area of expertise -- and well beyond deadline. When we
weighed our options, we determined "reinventing the wheel" was
not in our best interests. However, licensing the best
technology available was. Incorporating Visual Software's
features into our own product allowed us to add functionality
that our customers want ..."
Torrence Sullivan
Evisions, Inc.
April 2000
Orient Overseas Container Line Ltd using PCL2PDF
"... Orient Overseas Container Line Ltd's business activity
is container transportation and good transportation. Our system
generates the "bill of lading" pdf file in our web server by
passing data to Jetform Server to generate pcl file and then
call [Visual Software's] Pcl2pdf to convert pdf files. So our
customers can download their B/Ls through the web page ..."
SEALCORP Holdings Pty Ltd using PCL2PDF
"... SEALCORP was established in 1985 and has grown to
become one of Australia's leading financial services groups.
They act as an independent intermediary positioned between the
managers of savings, investment and risk managed products, and
the financial advisers and accountants who distribute these
products.
SEALCORP's wholly owned subsidiaries ASGARD, SECURITOR, PACT
and ASSIRT are all established leaders within their specific
fields. ASGARD operates a master fund with in excess of $5.7
billion of funds under administration.
SECURITOR and PACT are recognised as significant licensed
dealer groups of financial advisers and accountants in the
financial services industry. ASSIRT is one of Australia's
leading investment research houses.
As part of the service it offers, SEALCORP provides
consolidated half yearly reports to its clients and advisers for
the periods ending 31 December and 30 June of each year, with
the reports being mailed to clients in January and July
respectively.
The production of half yearly reports has previously been
handled via a programming language known as PRO-IV. As the
content of these reports is regularly changing, a major
development effort has been required for each new report run. So
as to reduce the development effort required, Sealcorp recently
made the decision to develop future half yearly reports using a
software application known as PReS. The use of PReS offers
increased flexibility in changing and producing half yearly
reports, provides flexible external printing options and
increases the printing features available for the reports. While
PReS offers a number of significant benefits, its adoption has
meant that an archiving solution must be put in place to allow
reports to reports to be viewed and/or reprinted by Client
Services staff. After undertaking analysis of the options
available SEALCORP decided to use PDF (Portable Document Format)
files as it's archive format. PDF files have a relatively small
file size and can be shared, viewed, navigated and printed
exactly as intended. In addition, PDF files offer the ability
for these reports to be made available to advisers via
SEALCORP's Extranet application known as adviserNET.
Unfortunately, the PReS application does not output directly
to the PDF format. However, it does allow reports to be output
as PCL files. Consequently, a PCL to PDF converter was required.
Visual Software's pcl2pdf converter was chosen for this purpose.
To facilitate the archiving and retrieval process, a Visual
Basic application was developed within SEALCORP. This
application polls a specified directory for any PCL files, calls
the pcl2pdf application to convert each of the files, saves the
resulting PDF files to disk and updates an Oracle database with
the file name and directory information. An enquiry screen then
uses the Oracle database in the retrieval process to locate the
required PDF files. During the production of the June 1999
reports, it was possible for SEALCORP to process 111,000 reports
at a rate of approximately 50 reports per minute or 3,000
reports per hour. The 111,000 reports equated to approximately
1,000,000 pages (i.e. 9 pages each). This was achieved using an
NT server with Pentium III 550 processor and 256MB RAM ..."
Russell Edwards
Senior Business Analyst
SEALCORP
Holdings Pty Ltd
August 1999
PDFing.com using PCL2PDF
"... PDFing.com is a small independent software vendor,
operating in the IBM AS/400 and MS Windows markets. Our product,
PDFingMailer, enhances AS/400 reporting systems to allow those
reports to be sent across networks in the universally readable
format that is known as PDF.
We were able to program the conversion of simple
line-printer data-streams from the AS/400 into PDF quite easily
(using the PDFlib library from Thomas Merz). However the AS/400
can also produce Hewlett Packard Printer Control Language
streams and the programming of this conversion task was probably
beyond our capabilities, and in any case would have taken far
too much of our time.
A review of the available tools for PCL to PDF conversion
soon led us to conclude that Pcl2pdf from Visual Software was
one of the best available and by far the easiest to integrate
into PDFingMailer. It has performed reliably and correctly for
all our customers. We have definitely picked up more sales
because of the features and functionality that Pcl2pdf
provides..."
David Fowle
PDFing.com
March 2000
3000 Newswire review for OPENPDF
OpenPDF is the HP3000/MPE port of Pcl2pdf.
La Capitol FCU using PCL Text Extraction
"... La Capitol FCU is a 167 million dollar credit union,
headquartered in Louisiana. Our main customers are state
employees. Our problem was that we were converting away from an
imaging system that had no way to deconvert our COLD data. COLD
reports are text files that have been stored to optical platter.
The only way to access these reports is to print them to a file,
and the only print driver it will print to is an HP LaserJet II.
With the help of [Visual Software's] PCL text extraction
software we printed the reports to a file, then converted them
to plain text...now we can easily import them into our new
imaging system ..."
Walt Stringer
La Capitol FCU
September 1999
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