FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What Is PDF-eXPLODE?
What Are the
Key Benefits of PDF-eXPLODE?
How Does It
Save Time and Decrease Costs?
How Does It Increase Customer Satisfaction and Retention?
Who Benefits from PDF-eXPLODE?
What Are Its Business
Applications?
What Are the
Key Features of PDF-eXPLODE?
How Is PDF-eXPLODE Different from Other Document Distribution Tools?
How Does PDF-eXPLODE Work?
What
Are the System Requirements for PDF-eXPLODE?
Will PDF-eXPLODE Combine Documents Going to the Same Recipient?
Can
I Send a Document to More than One Recipient?
Can I Customize the E-mail Messages for Each PDF Attachment?
Can I Manually Go Through the Delivery Process Step-by-Step?
How Does PDF-eXPLODE Know Where to Send a Document and What Message
Should be Sent?
How Do I “Tag” a Document?
Does “Tagging” a Document Differ Depending on the Business Application?
How Do I Know
If a Document Has Been Sent?
How Is PDF-EXPLODE Licensed?
Can I Get a Trial
Copy of PDF-eXPLODE?
How Can I Buy PDF-eXPLODE?
OVERVIEW
What Is PDF-eXPLODE?
PDF-eXPLODE is a one-click batch e-mail delivery tool that makes
it easy and cost-effective for small businesses to get their customers
the information they expect on time. Through a click of the printer
button, PDF-eXPLODE converts a report or a Word document into batches
of individual PDF attachments and securely and reliably e-mails
them to the designated recipients. In addition, users can
pre-schedule routine mailings for hands-free delivery.
What Are the
Key Benefits of PDF-eXPLODE?
PDF-eXPLODE is designed to strengthen your business relationships
by getting the information people need into their hands when they
expect it.
Whether sending daily confirmations, monthly statements, or other
critical reports or correspondence, PDF-eXPLODE reduces costs and
saves time by eliminating the labor-intensive process of hand-mailing
or e-mailing each document separately.
PDF-eXPLODE helps reduce costs, save time, increase cash flow and
enhance customer service.
How Does It
Save Time and Decrease Costs?
PDF-eXPLODE improves productivity and costs by eliminating the need
to send documents one-by-one, whether through the mail or by e-mail.
It:
- Eliminates costly and inefficient paper-based workflows.
- Offers customers, partners and employees immediate access
to the information they need.
- Pre-schedules routine and tedious mailings, freeing up staff
to focus on revenue-generating activities.
It also adds value to your existing business systems. Most organizations
already have made costly investments in software and equipment and
can't afford new technologies that disrupt their current workflows.
Thanks to its standards-based interface, PDF-eXPLODE software can
work with any existing business application.
- As a printer driver, it easily installs onto existing Windows
computers via the Printer Control Panel.
- It supports e-mail delivery of documents using SMTP (Simple
Mail Transport Protocol) standards.
- It works with your existing business applications, including
Crystal Reports, R&R Report Writer, Microsoft Access, Microsoft
Word (Mail Merge Wizard), Microsoft Visual FoxPro, plush accounting
and other software packages.
How Does It Increase Customer Satisfaction and Retention?
PDF-eXPLODE enables you to create focused, targeted documents, so
you can treat your customers and partners as individuals, leaving
them both satisfied and loyal. It:
- Customizes documents, such as financial statements and marketing
brochures, for specific individuals or even departments and workgroups
– sending them only the information they want and need.
- Allows you to send communications whenever you want for no
additional cost so you can be responsive to your customers’ needs.
- Combines multiple documents to the same recipient in a single
PDF file.
- Ensures that dynamically generated documents, including business
reports and sales letters, are highly legible and consistently
branded.
- Includes visually rich charts and graphs tailored to specific
documents.
- Enhances your document delivery with targeted e-mail messages.
Who Benefits from PDF-eXPLODE?
Everyone you do business with will benefit from PDF-eXPLODE. Communication
is central to the success of a business, and customers expect –
and demand – regular, consistent communication. PDF-eXPLODE makes
it easy and affordable to get the right information into the right
hands at the right time. That means customers – as well as business
partners and your employees – will remain well informed and, subsequently,
confident about and satisfied with how you do business.
PDF-eXPLODE helps companies
communicate reliably, efficiently and regularly not only with their
customers and outside vendors but also with and among departments.
PDF-eXPLODE allows departments as well as workgroups – purchasing,
operations and accounting, for example – to simultaneously receive
business-critical reports, so they can continue to coordinate to
keep the business running smoothly and efficiently.
What Are Its Business
Applications?
PDF-eXPLODE can be used in virtually any business and by any department
that sends bulk individualized communications – whether to customers,
employees, vendors or prospects.
Below is a sampling of the most popular uses for PDF-eXPLODE.
Manufacturing/Shipping and Fulfillment
Order confirmations
Shipping memos
Accounting and Finance
Invoices
Account statements
Contracts
Purchase orders
Dunning letters
Internal budget status reports
Human Resource Departments
Benefits statements
Open enrollment forms
Sales and Marketing
Targeted sales letters
Promotional mailings
Thank you notes
Re-order solicitations
Internal lead status reports
Regional sales reports
Professional Services
Billing statements
Appointment confirmations
Reminders to schedule appointment
Financial Service Providers
Monthly, quarterly, year-end statements
Trade confirmations
Portfolio management and reviews
What Are the
Key Features of PDF-eXPLODE?
Below is a rundown of feature highlights:
Easy Use and Set-up—PDF-eXPLODE can be used with both
text documents and data-driven reports, seamlessly fitting into
business workflows. PDF-eXPLODE works with most business applications,
including Crystal Reports, R&R Report Writer, Microsoft Access and
Microsoft Word (Mail Merge Wizard), Microsoft Visual FoxPro, and
accounting and other software packages. As a printer driver, it
installs onto any Windows computer via the Printer Control Panel.
Automatic and Manual Process Settings—PDF-eXPLODE can be
set in silent mode to run without intervention when a document is
printed, whether whether from within an application by clicking
the printer button or from a task scheduler for true hands-free
processing. Or it can be set to run manually for full control to
set options at any time, displaying interactive pop-up instructions
that users respond to every step of the way.
Standard and Customized E-mail Messages—PDF-eXPLODE
defaults to a general e-mail subject and message to make e-mail
deliveries as easy and hands-free as possible. For enhanced
customer service, it allows customization of e-mail subjects and
messages for each individual PDF attachment. In addition, users
can crate and name pre-scripted e-mail messages – such as
“Invoice” or “Monthly Statement” – to sent to all recipients of
a similar type of document to easily manage report distribution
to multiple customers.
Multiple Delivery Modes—PDF-eXPLODE can distribute individual
PDF attachments through a number of communications channels. In
addition to sending through e-mail, it can send documents to shared
network folders for employees to view. In the near future, PDF-eXPLODE
will have the capability to send PDF documents to FTP sites for
Web publishing.
Streamlined Mailings Management and Archiving—PDF-eXPLODE
has a number of features for managing mailings. It logs each task
performed for job verification so users can review the results of
each e-mail and correct any errors. It also saves a copy of each
PDF attachment for archiving.
Professional Benefits of PDF Format—PDF-eXPLODE leverages
the features and benefits of Adobe PDF. In addition to making
documents accessible to anyone using free Adobe Reader®
software, it preserves the professional appearance of original
documents so the electronic and paper versions look identical.
It protects the integrity of documents by making them
non-editable. It also offers efficiency, making it easy to copy
and paste information from documents into other office
productivity applications.
Secure Sending—PDF-eXPLODE has a number of security
features that protect the integrity of documents, including the
ability to select whether a recipient can edit the PDF document.
In addition, it allows users to password-protects files to
further secure their communications.
Efficient Operations—PDF-eXPLODE efficiently sends
documents directly through a mail server (SMTP) instead of using
an e-mail client, such as Outlook or Notes. This feature avoids
having to manually confirm pop-up security-block messages. It
also provides a choice of e-mail From: address, so e-mails can
be sent from any address. It also compresses documents for more
efficient delivery and storage.
Bonus PDF Creation—While the main purpose of PDF-eXPLODE is to
create and distribute batches of PDF documents, it can turn any
individual document, such as an Excel spreadsheet, into a PDF without
sending.
How Is PDF-eXPLODE Different from Other Document Distribution Tools?
PDF-eXPLODE is an all-in-one document delivery tool that allows
you to both create individual PDFs and e-mail them in batches with
a click of your printer button.
How Does PDF-eXPLODE Work?
PDF-eXPLODE functions as a Windows printer, so the document delivery
process starts with the click of a printer button.
PDF-eXPLODE then runs through a series of three steps to create
and distribute targeted e-mails. It:
- Takes a report or a word or mail merge document and, instead
of printing it, converts it to a master PDF document;
- “Explodes” (i.e. bursts or splits) the master PDF into individual PDF
attachments based on hidden e-mail tags in the original document;
and
- Distributes each individual PDF either via e-mail, a shared
drive on your local area network or FTP (available soon) to the
designated recipients.
What
Are the System Requirements for PDF-eXPLODE?
PDF-eXPLODE is ideally suited to work with any application that
merges data from a database with a template, including Crystal Reports;
R&R Report Writer; Microsoft Access; Microsoft Word (Mail Merge
Wizard); Microsoft Visual FoxPro and other "report writer" software,
either built-in to your business applications or used as a separate
add-on to your business databases. You also may use PDF-eXPLODE
with any Windows application that is capable of printing if you
wish to e-mail all or portions of the document or if you simply
want to convert a document to PDF format..
System requirements
Windows
-
Operating System: MicrosoftÒ
Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003Ò,
Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista™ or Windows 7
-
Hard Drive: Minimum
52.5MB of hard disk space, plus additional space for PDF files created
- RAM: At least 64MB of free RAM
Will PDF-eXPLODE Combine Documents Going to the Same Recipient?
Yes. PDF-eXPLODE merges all the documents “tagged,” or addressed,
to the same recipient into one PDF attachment, which it then e-mails.
Can
I Send a Document to More than One Recipient?
Yes. PDF-eXPLODE lets you send a single document to as many recipients
as you like. This feature is helpful to keep everyone in the loop.
Can I Customize the E-mail Messages for Each PDF Attachment?
Yes. You can create and send a specific e-mail message with a specific
PDF attachment. This is done by creating and saving a subject/message
in a client folder in PDF-eXPLODE and then “tagging” the original
document with the specific file name of the subject/message.
Can I Manually Go Through the Delivery Process Step-by-Step?
Yes. PDF-eXPLODE can run manually so that you have full control
to set options for a mailing at any time. Instead of running automatically
in “Silent Mode,” PDF-eXPLODE will display interactive pop-up instructions
that you respond to every step of the way.
How Does PDF-eXPLODE Know Where to Send a Document and What Message
Should be Sent?
PDF-eXPLODE reads hidden “tags” in the original document to know
where to send the attachment and what message to include in the
e-mail. These tags include a recipient identifier – which is usually
an e-mail address – and a message identifier. If a message identifier
is not included, the e-mail attachment is automatically sent with
the default message you indicated when you initially set up PDF-eXPLODE.
How Do I “Tag” a Document?
You insert a tag on each
page, typically as the first line in the page header, in the standard
format:
<pdfexplode>messageidentifier#client@e-mail.com</pdfexplode>
-
All tags must start
(“open”) with <pdfexplode>
and end (“close”) with </pdfexplode>
-
Open and close tags
must match each other in case (i.e., upper case, lower case, or
mixed case)
-
All tags must always
include a "client identifier," which may be a valid e-mail
address or a filename
-
An optional "message
identifier," if used, must precede the client identifier and be
followed by a pound sign ( #)
Does “Tagging” a Document Differ Depending on the Business Application?
Yes. The steps you follow to insert a PDF-eXPLODE tag depend
on the application in which you are working. Here are example tags,
depending on your business application.
Word
<pdfexplode>messageidentifier#client@E-mail.com</pdfexplode>
Crystal Reports
<pdfexplode>messageidentifier#{E-mail}</pdfexplode>
Word Mail Merge
<pdfexplode>messageidentifier#««E-mail»»</pdfexplode>
How Do I
Know If a Document Has Been Sent?
You can check on whether a document has been sent one of two ways:
-
You can view the “Log
File,” which records and displays each action, so you can see
if all documents were distributed – and which ones, if any, had
sending errors.
-
You also can look in
the e-mail inbox for your e-mail return address (i.e., Sender
Name) account for delivery errors returned by the intended recipient's
e-mail server.
How Is PDF-eXPLODE
Licensed?
A separate license is required for each computer on which PDF-eXPLODE
is installed.
Can I Get
a Trial Copy of PDF-eXPLODE?
Yes. You can download a 30-day free trial version.
How Can I Buy PDF-eXPLODE?
After downloading and installing the 30-day trial version of PDF-eXPLODE,
you can purchase a license by running the program and selecting
Purchase this software online and clicking Continue.
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