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Miraplacid Text Driver 4.4 User's Manual

 

Miraplacid Text Driver 4.4 User's Manual

Introduction


This is Terminal Server Edition of Miraplacid Text Driver. We assume that your system administrator already installed the software on the terminal server and added your account to authorized users list. Otherwise, please contact your system administrator.
You will work with Miraplacid Text Driver via terminal server window. Remember, everything you see there actually happen on the server. You cannot get initial file or put result to your local PC unless your hard drive is shared and mapped to the server. If you specify drive C:, it will be drive C of the server, not your local hard drive. If you keep your documents on the server, it will be convenient for you.

Start Text Extraction


To start new text extraction, open a document with printing-supported application and print the document
 
Miraplacid Text Driver : Text Extraction : Start Printing
 
In the "Print" dialog select "Miraplacid Text Driver" in a "Select Printer" ("Printer Name") box and click "Print"
 
Miraplacid Text Driver : Text Extraction : Print Dialog
 
Alternatively, you can drag and drop a document to Miraplacid Text Driver desktop icon.

Miraplacid Text Driver Dialog


The next step is Miraplacid Text Driver Dialog. It contains preview window, information controls, configuration controls and buttons described below.
 
Miraplacid Text Driver : Text Extraction : MTD Dialog
 

Document Name and Information window

The name of the document you printed is displayed in the very top of the dialog.
Information list box on the right side displays current state of the Miraplacid Text Driver and activity history.

Profiles (configurations)

Profiles are for saving and restoring Miraplacid Text Driver settings. Miraplacid Text Driver has "Default" profile and some per-defined profiles. You can save your settings under new profile name. Just type new unique profile name in profiless drop-down box and push "Save" button next to the drop-down. To restore saved profile just select it in the Profiles drop-down. You can delete all the profiles except the Default.
Miraplacid Text Driver saves only Default profile on exit. If non-Default profile selected, it will not be saved unless you push "Save" button.
Profile includes: Character set, End-of-line style, Autosave, Output style and Send To settings.

Preview Window

Large Preview Window on the left side of the dialog displays extracted text. Preview window displays one page at a time. If the document you printed has multiple pages, "Next" and "Previous" buttons help you to navigate through the pages. You can edit the text in the preview window and save changes to disk, but changing "Output Style" causes text re-formatting and loss of all the changing you made. Miraplacid Text Driver will warn you in all the situations when you can possibly loose your changes.

Navigation


Miraplacid Text Driver : Previous Button Miraplacid Text Driver : Next Button
 
Use "Previous" and "Next" buttons to navigate through the pages in multiple-pages document.

Redirect

This option allows you to print original document to the selected printer. Using Redirect, you may get your document to be transparently printed to your physical printer.
Taregt printer should support EMF printing. Please, note that this setting change will work only from the next print job.

Output Style

There are two output styles - Plain Text and Text with Layout (Formatted Text is an improved variant of Text with Layout). Plain Text output just joins all t he text on every line. You can specify a delimiter to separate strings. If your extracted text stick together, try to type blank character in the delimiter textbox. Text with Layout output makes the output text looks like the original document. It is useful for tables and diagrams conversion. Additionally, Miraplacid Text Driver contains XML output format. This format can be used by advanced users for custom text processing and formatting.

Character Set

It is recommended to use ANSI Latin-1 Windows character set for ASCII output unless you need non-English characters support. Besides, you can save output text as Unicode.

End of Line Style

It is recommended to use "Windows" End-Of-Line style unless you preparing a text file to be used on Unix.

Send To

You can choose several destinations at the same time. For example, you can save text to disk and print it to a real printer.

File

Saves text to disk. You can use File Browser to specify file location. You can specify file name or you can use printed document name as a file name. You can add {{PAGE}}, {{DATE}}, {{TIME}}, {{JOB}} and {{IDENTITY}} tags to file name and path. They will be replaced with current page number, current date, time, print job, and some unique number respectively.
You can open result text with some application, let's say, with text viewer, or process them with post-processor. To open every individual page with some software, check "Open with" checkboxes. Specify complete path to the application in the "Open With" textbox.For example, "Postprocessor" = "Notepad" will open result text file in Notepad.
To start the postprocessor for each page just add {{PAGE}} to output filename. Each page will be saved to individual file. Postprocessor will be called for each file. If all the pages are saved to a single file, postprocessor will be called once per document.
PageBreak option allows you to separate pages from each other by pagebreak symbol (0xC).

FTP

FTP plug-in sends text file to FTP server. Meanings of input fields:
  • URL - URL to the resource; should contain server name and optional folder, without filename.
    Example: ftp://www.yourcompany.com/publications
  • File - filename for the saved file. It may contain {{PAGE}}, {{DATE}}, {{TIME}}, {{JOB}} and {{IDENTITY}} tags to be expanded.
  • Passive mode checkbox. Check it if your server is behind a firewall.
  • User and Password - login to your server. If not specified, plug-in will try to connect as anonimous.
  • Document name checkbox. Check it to use printed document name as output filename.
  • PageBreak option allows you to separate pages from each other by pagebreak symbol (0xC).

HTTP

HTTP plug-in POSTs or PUTs text file to HTTP (Web) server. You can switch between POST and PUT modes by Use PUT method checkbox.
If your PUT or POST location is password protected, use User and Password fields. Document name checkbox allows you to use printed document name as output filename.
PageBreak option allows you to separate pages from each other by pagebreak symbol (0xC).

HTTP plug-in uses Basic authorization level.
If you use password protected saving, plug-in may sometimes send the file twice because most of servers decline the first connection attempt to protected resource.
URL and File fields have different meanings in PUT and POST modes:

PUT mode. URL should contain only server name and destination folder, as in FTP plug-in. File is a name of destination file, optionally with {{PAGE}}, {{DATE}}, {{TIME}}, {{JOB}} and {{IDENTITY}} tags included. To use this mode, Web server should support it, and it must be allowed (turned on) on the server.

POST mode. In this mode, URL should contain path to a script (ASP, ASPX, PHP, Perl, CGI or some other kind of active web page), which will receive POST web form from the plug-in. Example: http://www.yourcompany.com/publications/post.asp.
Content of the form is encoded according multipart/form-data form rules. Form consists of the following two fields:
  • File in expanded form is submitted under filename name as usual form field.
  • Content (file itself) is submitted under content name as file form field (Content-Type: application/octet-stream).
So, the script should receive content and save it under filename name.
Please, note that writing to the web folder usually forbidden for scripts. Script should save content in location with special permissions (write allowed for web server virtual user).
Here is an example of form receiving script in asp with MSCUpload component:
<%@ LANGUAGE=JScript %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Test POST feature</title>
</head>
<body>
<%
var oUpload = Server.CreateObject("Miraplacid.MSCUpload");
oUpload.ProcessPostData();

var folder = Server.mapPath("/post");
var oBlob = Server.CreateObject("Miraplacid.MSCBlob");
oBlob.LoadFromFile(oUpload.Files("content").TmpPath);
oBlob.SaveToFile(folder+"/"+oUpload.Form("filename"));
%>
</body>
</html>

Printer

You can print the text file to a real printer.

Clipboard

You can print the text file to Clipboard. Text will be available for Paste operation to any text control or application.

{{DATE}} and {{TIME}} tags

These tags allows you to include date and time information to file names and paths. They could be represented in two main forms:
  • Default (reduced) form: {{DATE}} and {{TIME}}. This form produce date and time in system default format.
  • Full (custom) form: {{DATE(date_format_string)}} and {{TIME(time_format_string)}}. This form allows you to get date and time information in desired form using format string patterns.
    If you use spaces to separate the elements in the format string, these spaces will appear in the same location in the output string. Characters in the format string that are enclosed in single quotation marks will appear in the same location and unchanged in the output string.
Date format string elements:
Element Meaning
d Day of month as digits with no leading zero for single-digit days.
dd Day of month as digits with leading zero for single-digit days.
ddd Day of week as a three-letter abbreviation.
dddd Day of week as its full name.
M Month as digits with no leading zero for single-digit months.
MM Month as digits with leading zero for single-digit months.
MMM Month as a three-letter abbreviation.
MMMM Month as its full name.
y Year as last two digits, but with no leading zero for years less than 10.
yy Year as last two digits, but with leading zero for years less than 10.
yyyy Year represented by full four digits.
gg Period/era string. This element is ignored if the date to be formatted does not have an associated era or period string.

Time format string elements:
Element Meaning
h Hours with no leading zero for single-digit hours; 12-hour clock.
hh Hours with leading zero for single-digit hours; 12-hour clock.
H Hours with no leading zero for single-digit hours; 24-hour clock.
HH Hours with leading zero for single-digit hours; 24-hour clock.
m Minutes with no leading zero for single-digit minutes.
mm Minutes with leading zero for single-digit minutes.
s Seconds with no leading zero for single-digit seconds.
ss Seconds with leading zero for single-digit seconds.
t One character time-marker string, such as A or P.
tt Multicharacter time-marker string, such as AM or PM.

 
Miraplacid Text Driver : Directory Browser
 

Refresh and New Folder


Miraplacid Text Driver : Refresh Button Miraplacid Text Driver : New Folder Button
 
These buttons appear in Directory Browser mode. "Refresh" refreshes directory tree. "New Folder" create new subfolder in the currently selected folder.

Save and Save All


Miraplacid Text Driver : Save Button Miraplacid Text Driver : Save All Button
 
"Save" button saves current page to the specified file. "Save All" button saves all the pages to the specified file and get prepared for the next document (see "Done" command below).

Done and Hide


Miraplacid Text Driver : Done Button Miraplacid Text Driver : Hide Button
 
When you are done with current document, click "Done" button. If there is no pending printed documents, Miraplacid Text Driver will turn to Idle state. Otherwise, first page of the next printed document will appear in the Preview window. If there are no unprocessed printed documents, "Done" button become "Hide" button.

Minimize to Tray


Miraplacid Text Driver : Tray Icon
 
Miraplacid Text Driver adds an icon to Windows System Tray. Right click the icon to open popup menu. If there are no unprocessed printed documents, you can minimize Miraplacid Text Driver dialog with "Hide" button. Besides, you can hide the dialog at any point with button:
Miraplacid Text Driver : Minimize Button
To restore the window, double click Miraplacid Text Driver tray icon or choose "Open" in the icon popup menu.

Auto Save Mode

If you want Miraplacid Text Driver to save all the extracted text to the specified file without your interaction, check "Auto Save Mode" checkbox on the dialog or in the Tray Icon popup menu. Current document and all the following documents will be auto-saved to the specified output file. If Auto Save Mode is off and there was idle and new document has been printed, Miraplacid Text Driver dialog appears on a screen. It does not happen when Auto Save Mode is turned on for your convenience.
 

See also:

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