The Challenge: Create Large, Easy to Manage Files out of Smaller Documents

You are responsible for print output management in an organization that creates and/or receives large numbers of small, separate documents. Here are some of the challenges you may be facing:

• Your client applications generate large quantities of single, separate customer statements that are not sorted in any useful way and cannot be automatically combined into batches for specific business purposes
• You may need to print these files as a single print file, in order to ensure economies of scale
• You may need to include appropriate barcodes for post processing and postal automation, to achieve maximum postal discounts
• You may also need to convert the aggregated file into a high speed print format

To achieve economies of scale in printing, inserting or archiving, you need to accumulate the above single documents into larger multi-document print files.

Our PRO Suite of products can help overcome that challenge. In addition, many of our partners have fully integrated our technology into other print file aggregation systems, providing a wide range of alternatives to meet every organizational requirement.

The Solution: Let PRO Suite Aggregate Documents into Optimum Size Files

Regardless of print architecture (AFP, PostScript, PCL, Xerox LCDS/metacode) and platform (z/OS, Unix or Windows), the PRO Suite of products can be used to implement a print file aggregation solution that meets your needs.

The PRO Concatenator product can concatenate any number of files into a single file in the same format. Formats supported include PDF, PCL, PostScript, AFP, Xerox LCDS/Metacode, TIFF and line print data. You can specify which pages are to be pulled from each file and the sequence they should be placed in.

The PRO Transform Manager member of the PRO Flow Suite can automate the aggregation of many files. You can set up concatenation queues in it with parameters such as minimum batch size and time to wait for stragglers. The PRO Transform Manager manages PRO Concatenator and can also manage the aggregate files created, sending them to printers, other post-processors or FTP servers.

The aggregated data often needs to be properly indexed. PRO Indexer, a PRO Suite plug-in working in conjunction with PRO transforms, provides a reliable and robust way to get even very complex data from the print files faithfully. The print files can be AFP, Xerox Metacode or LCDS, PDF, PostScript or PCL and the platforms include Z/OS, UNIX and Windows.

With the PRO Indexer, a designer can define the extraction rules for each section using whatever algorithm works best for that particular section. Since many sections can run from one page to the next and can begin or end in many different ways, a scripting capability makes it possible to extract even the most challenging data reliably.

You may need to reengineer the contents and/or the look of the documents aggregated into required batches.

The PRO Suite includes the PRO Document Enhancer option, a powerful, highly flexible document reengineering tool. In a single production pass concurrent with the conversion process and regardless of print architecture and platform type, PRO Document Enhancer can:

• Add or remove text fields, OMR marks, barcodes and control numbers on document pages
• Move elements around on pages
• Sort the entire file into the required print sequence
• Add postal automation information
• Do much, much more

Convert Print Data to Unlock Legacy Files

CrawfordTech transforms convert print files from any to any of the following formats: AFP, Xerox LCDS and Metacode, PCL, Postscript and PDF. PRO transforms make it easy to bridge legacy print applications into new and/or future architectures.

Users of PRO Suite File Aggregation solutions include insurance companies, utilities and financial institutions.