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Exploring PDF Conversion On the Enterprise Level: Absolute PDF Server 3.0

Absolute PDF Server

We talk a lot about productivity and PDF conversion on the desktop, mobile, and cloud platforms. However, we never really covered the server platform where PDF conversion and productivity can occur at an even higher, much larger scale: the enterprise level.

At that level, the key point for companies is to manage resources, data and processes across the entire organization. Because it can be expensive and inefficient to have individual PDF applications for each employee, organizations typically turn to enterprise software as a solution.

What is Enterprise Software?

Enterprise software is different from what you’d normally experience from a program you buy, download, and use on your own personal computer. Enterprise software solutions are capable of catering to a large amount of users over a network, and are usually handled on the company’s backend servers.

Unlimited Users and Conversions Enterprise software applications usually handle business- or data- oriented tasks, such as info management, billing and accounting, order processing, and database management. Enterprise software is developed and offered by companies like Oracle, Sage, Microsoft, and IBM.

Moreover, enterprise workflows can differ and range from businesses and governments to schools and financial institutions. Naturally, each sector and organization has different needs. Thus, managers have to ensure that the enterprise software they choose works for their employees, the company’s IT system, and existing workflows.

Exploring An Organization’s Needs

In most cases, organizations can customize their enterprise software solutions “a la carte” according to their software strategy. Oftentimes, companies choose to use enterprise level software for tasks performed on a regular basis by the majority of its employees. Organization-wide solutions can offer workflows that are extremely effective at speeding up and controlling the task at hand.

PDF Document Conversion For The Enterprise: Absolute PDF Server 3.0

With PDF conversion, for instance, your IT managers can effectively automate a high volume of file conversions in one standardized framework. All they need is Absolute PDF Server.

Absolute PDF Server is the first enterprise-level document management solution to offer both PDF extraction and creation. It gives organizations the ability to perform both functionalities in one streamlined process.

Absolute PDF Server integrates technology from our Able2Extract PDF Server (used to convert PDF files into several other formats) and Sonic PDF Server (used to convert different file formats into PDF file format). As a result, you get quick PDF conversion to multiple formats and a tailored PDF creation process in one single location.

How Absolute PDF Server Works

How the process works depends on how your administrator sets it up. Essentially, you will either be able to email their document to a specified email address for conversion, or you can simply place your file into a watched folder (organized based on input format) which is monitored by Absolute PDF Server. In both cases, Absolute PDF Server will convert the files emailed or found within the folder, and the converted files will be sent back to you.

Converting via Absolute PDF Server Interface

You get your file properly converted while your IT administrators get full control over the process. They can manage, configure, and process the conversion queue from one user interface, ensuring that the conversion jobs are completed.

What Does Absolute PDF Server Have To Offer?

Although Absolute PDF Server is geared towards high volume conversion jobs for an entire company, it can still cater to individual conversion needs with the following features:

Convert and Create PDFs: Convert all native and scanned PDFs into MS Word, MS Excel and more; Create PDF from any printable Windows application
Customize PDF Creation: Brand your PDFs with watermarks; Manage fonts and colors; Combine multiple PDFs, split or join them.
Secure your PDFs: Set passwords, editing and printing permissions and choose from 40 or 128 bit encryption levels.
Schedule PDF Tasks: The server can be set to operate at specific times and dates. Files can be processed in middle of the night if desired.
Set Up Monitored Folders/Sub Folders: Automate PDF creation by specifying a folder for placing input files.
Email Integration: Converted files are processed and the result is emailed back to the sender.
Job Ticket Creation: The Job Ticket Editor is used for specifying PDF creation and extraction settings.

Given the features above, using Absolute PDF Server naturally comes with a few fringe benefits:

Increases Productivity. Improve the enterprise’s productivity and efficiency by managing processes on the backend.
Creates A Standardized System. IT Administrators can schedule, monitor, and keep track of tasks from one location. Document management is streamlined organization wide.
Unlimited Number of Users & Conversions. That’s right, unlimited. This means multiple users can convert as many files as they need, when they need.
Cost Effective. Absolute PDF Server is sold on a per license, per server basis. No individual licenses or subscriptions required. There are no extra modules or add-ins to buy later on.

So is enterprise-level PDF conversion right for your company? Find out. Get your IT manager to test out Absolute PDF Server’s features before taking the plunge! We offer a free 30-day trial for organizations.

For more details, contact our support team directly.

How To View PDF Files In Mozilla Firefox

With over 80% of non-HTML documents on the web consisting of PDF documents, viewing PDFs in browsers has become a common user behavior among web surfers. You can come across anything in the PDF format: manuals, quick start guides, white papers, ebooks—the list goes on.

So it’s not surprising that browsers are trying to fill that need with built-in PDF viewing features. We’ve already covered Chrome’s native PDF viewer when it first came out. And other browsers, like Mozilla Firefox, have since followed suit.

Thus, it’s high time we took a look at how you can use Firefox’s PDF viewing feature that was added in the latest version of Mozilla Firefox.

Getting Started

The convenience of these built-in PDF viewers like Firefox’s is that it allows users to open and view PDF files online without a plug-in. The viewer is on by default, so you don’t have to worry about enabling it. All you have to do is click on the link of the PDF file. And just like that, you can view PDFs directly within the browser.

Viewing PDF In Firefox

Overall, the interface is sleek and simple, and the minimalist approach offers a clean PDF viewing experience. Although Firefox PDF viewer worked well with the PDFs tested, it gave us a warning that “this PDF document might not be displayed correctly” and offers up a quick click solution to use a different viewer.

Firefox PDF viewer warning

Depending on the complexity of the PDF you’re trying to view, you might want to take advantage of this. Otherwise, you can close this pop-up and continue to view your PDF.

PDF Viewing And Functionality

Once you have a PDF opened in Firefox, you can accomplish the most common tasks with the file from the toolbar.

Thumbnails: Navigate through the PDF with the built-in viewer’s sidebar navigation. You can toggle between a thumbnail or outline view

Page Up/Down: In addition to scrolling, you can manually go page by page through your PDF

Page Navigation: Jump to and from a specific page in the file

Zooming: For zooming in and out on your PDF content. Click on the drop down box and you can specify the page size and display

And like most PDF viewers, you get features to help you take that file offline or view it more easily:

Firefox PDF File Options

Full Screen Mode: View your PDF document in full screen mode
Printing: Print a copy of the PDF. From the Print dialog you can select the printer drive, the range of pages and the number of copies you want
Downloading: Download and save the PDF to your computer
Copy Current View: Allows you to open the current view in another tab or window

Dealing With PDF Viewing Issues

Considering this feature is only a few months old, you may experience some bugs, slow rendering, or even blank PDF pages. As such, you may want to use Firefox’s built-in PDF viewer sparingly or only on more simple PDF files.

You can also disable the viewer and resort to using your regular PDF plugins or PDF viewers to open PDF files. To do this, follow these steps:

1. In the Tools menu, select Options

2. In the Options dialog, go into the Applications tab

3. Search for and select Portable Document Format (PDF) in the Content Type list

4. In the Action list, click on the drop-down arrow. Here you can specify how you want Firefox to handle PDF files.

Adjusting Firefox Viewing Options

To try Firefox’s PDF viewer yourself, head over to the Mozilla.org site to download the latest version.

Need A PDF? Here Are A Few More Search Engines To Check Out. Finally!

Last year, PDF search engines were just breaking ground on the Internet. Back then, we were only able to find and review 3 PDF search engines—and all three were in beta. Needless to say, you couldn’t be particular about your tools or your search habits when there wasn’t much to choose from.

Fortunately, more than a year later, that has changed. Thanks to the continued development of online document management, essential tools, like document search engines, are gaining ground.

Now you can find more than just 3 PDF search engines.Here are a few more that we reviewed to add to the list.

PDFQueen

PDFQueen is a free unlimited PDF search and downloading engine with millions of documents in its database. To start searching for a PDF, you can use already inputted search term tags from their collection of Recent PDF Searches, or from their collection of Last PDF Searches by Countries.

Once you search, you’ll get a page that resembles a typical Google search result. Click on a file and you get a clean HTML version to preview directly on the site with the download link right above it.

Searches done by countries will give you a list of “popular ebooks” looked for by date, which might make tailored searches easier, but with a few more clicks.

PDF-Searcher

With one test run using PDF-Searcher, you’ll get the impression that this site is based on the social media user.To start, there are bookmarking and social network icons for quick access and linking with popular sites you use everyday.

PDF Searcher

Moreover, when you get your search results back, you not only have HTML and PDF previews, but also the option of previewing files in the popular Flash format powered by PDFMeNot.

Also, while the homepage may not offer suggested search tags, you’ll get those at the bottom of your results page if what you’ve typed in doesn’t give you the right results.

docjax

If you thought PDF Database.com was a bit more versatile, you’ll think this engine is a swiss army knife.Docjax gives you the option of searching for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files.For each search result, you can preview the file, download it and even rate it by clicking on the “Love It” icon.

Docjax beta

This site is a bit cleaner than most.It offerstag clouds, recommended books andthe usual “most viewed,” “most loved,” “most downloaded,” etc., in separate menus and drop boxes, like a regular website.

As to searching for the right file, you get handy .doc, .xls, .ppt, .pdf tabs to instantly switch your search from format to format without having to toggle and re-search.

Rapid4Me.com

While its name might bring to mind the popular torrent, this Rapidshare Search Engine is catered specifically to PDF files and not media. Rapid4Me PDF search engine is pretty decent.Like PDFQueen you get a handful of handy tags to start off with.

Once you search, you’ll get ranked results that take you to an immediate PDF preview in your browser. If that annoys you, you also have the option to preview an HTML version first.

PDF-search.org

PDF-Search.org combines different features of the other search engines into one.It has the social bookmarking and viewing options of PDF-Searcher; the added dropbox of PDFDatabase.com for PDF, DOC, and PPT search options; and the country tagging collection of PDFQueen.

To boot, like docjax, you can toggle between formats in your search with a simple click and still have the option of viewing them in Flash.

Take a careful look at each PDF search engine. When you have a number of them to choose from, you’re bound to find one that suits you, and not the other way around!

How To Create PDFs With The Wikipedia PDF Converter

Wikipedia Logo

If you’re a Wikipedia user who’s tried to save an article in the PDF format, then you know that the results aren’t too great. You simply get a snapshot of a saved HTML page in a PDF viewer, give or take a few a few re-formatting touches here and there.

Well, you can actually get better PDF quality by converting Wikipedia articles with the Print/export feature that creates PDFs from Wikipedia articles and WikiBooks.

Now you may be thinking that converting an HTML page into PDF is nothing new. It’s something you can do with any HTML to PDF conversion software out there. However, what sticks out about this feature is that the PDF conversion is especially made for Wikipedia articles.

WikiType This means you get a clean re-formatted PDF without the webpage formatting you get in your browser and, then in your PDF via conversion. Web page elements like side menus, edit links, banners and bulleted links, get neatly reformatted or eliminated to give you a document-like appearance for your PDF.

If you need a Wikipedia article in proper PDF appearance, simply click on the Print/export link in the lefthand side, copy the URL of the wiki page, paste it into the interface and submit. The generated PDF will be set up with an official title page, a properly formatted table of contents, professional headers and footers, PDF bookmarks and page numbers.

Be warned though that included in your PDF is a 5 page GNU documentation license at the end of the article and a single GNU publication page at the beginning (after the title page). You’ll end up with a few extra pages you didn’t expect. Other than that, WikiType comes in handy for reading those Wiki documents offline in a readable format.