Drag and drop your way to perfect output

By Rowan Hanna
PDF Store Support Team
Issue 15 for 2005

There are literally hundreds of different PDF products on the market (as if you didn't already know!) Concordantly, there are a number of distinct interfaces to these products: some are used interactively from inside (plug-ins) or outside (standalone tools) of Acrobat while others must be configured for use on a server for use with web sites.

What if you just want to drop a file into a designated folder and run it through an operation or series of operations to get your final document? This is technically known as a "Watched" or "Hot" folder interface, and there are several tools available from PDF Store that allow for this. Essentially what that involves is creating the folder and telling the processing software what to do with any files found in that folder. For instance, you may have a series of preflight checks and corrections that routinely need to be made to your outgoing files to make them suitable for commercial printing as PDF/X-compliant documents. If so, then you could simply set up a pre-configured hot folder with PitStop Server doing the heavy lifting.

Perhaps what you need is to reliably convert MS Office documents with consistent settings across your company. No problem -- just set up a shared hot folder with the desired settings in AdLib eXpress Server or DocConverter. Using shared hot folders means that only the person configuring the hot folder setup need be familiar with the product integrated with the hot folders. That not only saves time processing the files, but it means that the rest of the staff don't need to be trained to use the new software. Pretty cool, huh?

Watch this space! There'll be more workflow tool highlights in the coming weeks. Until next time, please browse PDF Store's Server-side PDF aisle for the complete range of PDF applications with Watched Folder integration.