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Printing many PDF's at once

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    #1

    Printing many PDF's at once

    I have a grid such as:

    2/1/2018 Driver's license View
    2/2/2018 Long Questionnaire View

    etc.

    The user can click View at the end of a row to see or print the corresponding PDF.

    But what would be the easiest way to allow the user to print all of the PDF's at once by just click a 'View All' button?

    Looking for ideas/suggestions.
    Gary S. Traub, Ph.D.

    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Printing many PDF's at once

    We have a process like that. There is some selection criteria and a series of radio buttons. Shows all the possible reports and yes/no radio buttons.

    report_pick.png

    Then we step through the list of reports and print the ones that are "Yes" to a temporary directory. The user can then print one by one from that directory or combine the reports into a single pdf and print that.
    For the combine, we use pdf_append_list(generated_report_list.dump(),combined_report_filename) which combines the individual pdf's to a single pdf for printing.
    Attached Files
    Pat Bremkamp
    MindKicks Consulting

    Comment

      #3
      Re: Printing many PDF's at once

      Gary,
      You can use Xbasic to created each pdf on the server, then use the PDF_append() function to append one file to another to create a new file. For more than two files, you may need to append file2 to file1, then append file3 to the combined file, then file4 to that combined group.
      Then you open the file, or allow the user to download the combined file.

      Hope that helps.
      Jay

      P.S. Sorry for the reinteration, Pat. I had started typing my answer, got called away, and then hit the submit button.
      Jay Talbott
      Lexington, KY

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Printing many PDF's at once

        Jay, usually I'm the one that's second! At least we have the same advice.
        Pat Bremkamp
        MindKicks Consulting

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Printing many PDF's at once

          Hi Pat and Jay,

          I appreciate the replies. That is what I already do - and with a few pdf's it works great, but with many pdf's (can be 50 to even several hundred) it can be very slow and bogs down the system for other users. I was hoping there would be a utility that could print all the pdfs that I copy there so that it does not tie up the WAS. Perhaps a 3rd party utility. Any suggestions?
          Gary S. Traub, Ph.D.

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Printing many PDF's at once

            I have tweaked the code I had been using and it does seem a bit faster. Still would love to know if there is another way to do this so as not to bog down the WAS when there are many pdf's.

            Also, is there a way to take a longtext field and create a PDF out of it, that would be quicker than using the report.saveas method?
            Gary S. Traub, Ph.D.

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Printing many PDF's at once

              Install the a desktop runtime app on the server/another pc that monitors the pdf folder location and does all the xbasic pdf stuff. We had a similar setup and it worked great plus took load off server. I don't have any code to help, didn't create it and our CTO removed most A5 stuff a few years ago.

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Printing many PDF's at once

                I had no luck trying to make the printing process faster, so I looked at what was blocking the other users. In what we do, there are 6 or 7 tables involved, and we print these 20 page reports at least 10 times a day, so I understand that if you print from the tables you use for data entry, that will tie up the table while the report prints. So, I built a table using the memory engine that is used only for printing. That way, we tie up the table only for as long as it takes to copy the data into the memory table, then the working tables are released while the memory table is used for printing. We use stored procedures and Xbasic modules to copy the data which is very fast. From time to time I truncate the memory table since once the printing is finished, that row is no longer needed.

                Same concept as the suggestion of using the runtime, but without the runtime.
                Pat Bremkamp
                MindKicks Consulting

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: Printing many PDF's at once

                  Alternatively, would creating the "reports" in html format and rendering them in the browser suffice? I have noticed a lot of commercial sites are now doing just that. I don't know if it would be any quicker, but you might want to try it.
                  It's a pain in the posterior coding the html (often involving iterating through records and placing them in html tables), but it may be worth it for the performance.

                  Jay
                  Jay Talbott
                  Lexington, KY

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: Printing many PDF's at once

                    Hi Jay,

                    That could be useful to speed up reports, but my primary need right now is to display PDF's that the user uploads to the server.
                    Gary S. Traub, Ph.D.

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: Printing many PDF's at once

                      Would the "Context.Session.SaveDataAsFile" Method give us any speed increase?

                      Comment

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