About Miraplacid Publisher

With Miraplacid Publisher 2020 software you can convert (print) any document to an image or web presentation. Anyone can open your document across a broad range of hardware and software, and it will look exactly as you intended - with layout, fonts, and images intact. No one can modify or copy and paste your texts.

Terminal Server Edition is special version of Miraplacid Publisher designed for multi-user Terminal Server environment.

After installation on your PC, Miraplacid Publisher appears as a new virtual printer in your system. All the documents you print to this "printer" will be opened in a Preview Window. You scale the image and get rid of unused white borders, adjust hue, saturation and value, and do some other image processing. Then you can save resulting images to disk, upload to FTP or HTTP server, print them to a real printer, or send them as attachments via email.
Miraplacid Publisher supports following output formats: PDF, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, PNG, TGA and GIF. When redirecting to a printer, reduce saturation to save color cartridge or increase value to save black ink. Use borders detector in manual mode to set printing area when you need to print only the document part you need.
Miraplacid Publisher adds icon to desktop. All the documents you drag and drop to this icon will be printed behind the scenes and processed by Miraplacid Publihser. Turn "AutoSave" on if you want Miraplacid Publisher to send images to chosen destinations without waiting for your input. Filenames and paths of the resulting files can be constructed using special tags: {{TERMINAL}}, {{DOCNAME}}, {{USER}}, {{MACHINE}}, {{SYSFOLDER}}, {{PAGE}}, {{IDENTITY}}, {{JOB}}, {{DATE}} or {{TIME}}.
Miraplacid Publisher is integration-ready software. All the settings can be easily managed from your software or script.

If you wish to use Publisher as integrated part of your own product, please, use Miraplacid Publisher SDK.

How to print to Publisher from DOS program?
To set up Miraplacid Publisher to catch DOS text print job, you need to do the following:
  1. Share Publisher on the network.
  2. On PC with your DOS program, create the following batch file: 
    
net use lpt1: /delete 
net use lpt1: \\Your_Computer_Name\SharedPrinter
  3. Run this batch file.
  4. Open Advanced Settings software.
  5. Set Datatype to TEXT and press OK.
You should be able to print from a DOS program to LPT1. Try it out from EDIT, open a text file, and print it.

How to print to Publisher from service or other program when nobody is logged in?
Normally, Publisher core works in the same session as user printing application. This allows Publisher to support correctly such personal folders as Profile, Desktop, My Documents, etc.
When you print to Publisher as a shared printer, or print from some system service, print job will be initiated from SYSTEM user which does not have personal settings. So, in this case only Common Settings should be used.
Server-based printing means that you will need no User Interface.
To run Publisher successfully in such a "server" environment, you need to:
  1. Launch Publisher user interface from your desktop or program folder.
  2. Set all Publisher options to desired values. Please, do not use personal folders in {{SYSFOLDER}} tag (for SYSTEM account).
  3. Set AutoSave checkbox to "ON" in System Options.
  4. If user who will print jobs does not have personal settings (for shared printers and printing from services), press "Save Common" button.
  5. Close user interface. The configuration will be saved.
In result, Publisher will work in automatic mode, without user interface and under user who printed the print job.
If you will need to change configuration, just open user interface, make your changes and close it.

How to set up Publisher to work as a network printer?
Like any other printer, Publisher may be shared on a network by setting standard sharing properties in Printers/Printers and Faxes folder. You may install Publisher on your network server, share it and choose any suitable name for this shared printer.
But, you will not be able to use Publisher interactively, i.e., with User Interface. So, before you will start using Publisher as a shared printer, you will need to change and save all necessary settings, and set AutoSave mode to ON to prevent User Interface component to start. After that, press "Save Common" button to save this configuration for all users.
However, you will not be able to use personal settings for this printer users - no personal folders, {{USER}} tags, etc, because Publisher core will run under the same account (SYSTEM) for all users. Step-by-step instuctions available at previous recipe.
If you need to have personalized settings, or need to launch User Interface for your users, we recommend you to consider Terminal Server Edition.

PDF comments

 There are two ways to create PDF file from a document - text-based and image-based. The difference is in text representation. You can save text and font settings or you can convert text to a raster image and save the Image. Image-based PDF is usually produce slightly larger file, but it is guaranteed to look identically on every computer. Miraplacid Publisher and Miraplacid Screen Capture work with snapshot image copies of documents rather than with text documents itself. That is why Miraplacid products produce image-based PDF files rather than text-based. If you have concerns about PDF file size, please use appropriate software from Adobe or third party vendors. We recommend you to choose software able to convert your document format directly to text-based PDF file for better results.
PDF files generated by Miraplacid Publisher are compatible with any version of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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