Nordic Star Products 4.3A 8. Overlay files and cover sheets

Overlayfiles and cover sheets

XFAX- User’s Guide 4.3a 25

8. Overlay files and cover sheets

Overlayfiles are files store in the XFAX fax format which can be used as cover

pages ormerge on to each fax page sent as a form template for example. This

makes it possibleto send faxes with a very nice layout. For example you can

send orderconfirmations with your logotype and other form elements being

mergedon to raw text data which contains the order data.

In orderto generate an overlay file you use the XFAX Windowsclient. Put

togetheryour document in an application such as Microsoft Word and then print

the documentchoosing the XFAX printer. When the XFAXdialog show up,

press “Store”.You will be asked for a name to “Store Coverpage As”. Enter a

filename.Then a XFAX fax file will be generated and stored on the UNIX server

in the XFAXDIR/coversdirectory. This file can then be used as an overlay file.

In orderto use an overlay file with faxsend you can do this:

faxsend –overlay /etc/xfax/covers/orderform 55576861 orderdata.txt

Youcan also use one overlay file as cover page and another overlayfile as form

for the restof the pages:

faxsend –cover mycover –overlay_repeat –overlay_skip 1 –overlay

orderform 55576861 orderdata.txt

This isan easy way for adding a form including the company logo to outgoing

purchaseorders or to add a nice layout in an e-mail to fax gateway for example.

It is quiteeasy to make neat cover sheets, page headings and page footings in

XFAXwith logotypes and other refinements. The principle is that you design

yourcover sheet (or whatever) in some suitable program which can make a print-

out in theform of PCL code; to be more precise the data which is generated by

anHP Laserjet Plus, for the file. For example, you can use Word or Pagemaker in

Windows.You simply position the codes in thedocument where you want to

have the name of the sender,recipient, etc. These codes should be in a typeface

thatmeans that the text is stored as text and not converted to screen data. In order

toavoid this you should use the typefaces that have been built into XFAX.These

arethe same typefaces that are in a Microsoft Z1A font cassette. These typefaces

are marked witha small printer in the typeface list in the application when the

right printeris chosen. Print out the document to file. Stage 1 is now completed.

The next step is to replace the filed codes in each fax that is to have a cover sheet

with the realvalues for sender, recipient, etc. This is best done with the com-

mand faxsr(Search and Replace). faxsr takes a number of arguments of the type

“code = value”and then searches for the sequence “:code:” and replaces this

with thevalues given. If, for example, you have set in the code “:REC:” in the

coversheet template ETCDIR/cover.icab where you want to have therecipient’s