4 replies to this topic

[Phil Ingram]

Doug,

You don't say what platform the application is running on, so I will assume Unix.
I tried to do this several years ago now and found the easiest way was to create
a unix print device that, instead of out putting to a printer, called the
unix 'mail' command. All output to be e-mailed from pro-iv was output
as a report to this spool device.

[Raymundo 'Bong' Malvar]

If u are in Unix platform the easiest way is to use unix script.
Use unix mail command, pass all necessary info such as e-mail addr, subj, etc.
Call the script in PRO-IV and voila ..instant e-mail.

[David Tuke]

Doug

A neat way to send an existing file is to use a (GPL) utility for unix
(and other environments) which acts as a command line mailer which attaches a file
in MIME encoded format. The beauty of this is that the file may contain
embedded formatting commands such as HTML tags etc and when emailed to
a user will display corrxectly

The free utility is called mpack, and can be run from a command line:

eg #R = SYSTEM('mpack -s'Test Email' test.txt fred@domain.com')

This will attach the file test.txt to an email, and any email client will receive the email
as a note plus the MIME encoded attachment. On double clicking on the attachement,
the client will then open up (based on the extension eg .txt -> notepad;
.pdf -> acrobat reader) and view the contents

In some contexts, it is wise to disallow the user from editing the file, as they could with
notepad, so try using .pdf to open in acrobat - which is read only for the average user.

This utlity is available from ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/mpack

It really proves its worth when combined with another (proprietary) utlity from
Vision Software called pcl2pdf. This takes a raw text file, or a pcl encoded text file
and converts the file into a PDF encoded document, which when mpacked out to a user,
gives a fast easy way to email reports direct from proiv to end users - with any embeddded
laserjet pcl formatting preserved. hence with pcl or raw output, what you see on paper
is what you get in an email attachment. We have used this method to email out to users
very elaborately encoded pcl documents, with signatures, fonts, and macro overlays all
rendered in a pdf document exactly as the look on paper.

Another side benefit is that you can let acrobat
handle local printing using the installed windows drivers, rendering the acrobat PDF file
onto any output device. Thus your proiv app can (indirectly) support any type of printer - from
postscript thru pcl to even some inkjet printers that rely on windows to work.

search the internet (alta vista) to find home page for pcl2pdf

david tuke