Technical FAQs

Why do I get a “File Format Unrecognized” exception when trying to load a PDF document in ImageGear .NET?

You will need to set up your project to include PDF support if you want to work with PDF documents. Add a reference to ImageGear24.Formats.Pdf (if you’re using another version of ImageGear, make sure you’re adding the correct reference). Add the following line of code where you specify other resources:

using ImageGear.Formats.PDF;

Add the following lines of code before you begin working with PDFs:

ImGearFileFormats.Filters.Insert(0, ImGearPDF.CreatePDFFormat());
ImGearPDF.Initialize();

The documentation page linked here shows how to add PDF support to a project.

When printing non-standard size raster images with PrizmDoc they can sometimes become cutoff if too tall or wide. How can I correctly print a non-standard size raster image with PrizmDoc?

(This explanation is done for a tall portrait image, but can be altered to work for a wide landscape image by flipping the width and height.)

To do this, you have to add a custom paper size to viewerCustomization.js and specify a smaller width so that there is enough room to fit the height of the image on a single page.

To find the correct width value so that the image will fit on a single page, you will need to do some math. In this example, we’ll use an image that is 1305×2823. In this case, the width is 46.2% of the height. If you want to print onto 8.5×11 inch paper, then the width you want to set for your new custom paper size is 11*0.462, which comes out to 5.082.

So now that you have the width, you need to create the new custom paper size. In viewerCustomization.js in the templates section, find the "print" template and add the following code where the other printing paper sizes are located.

/*custom */
.portrait .custom.page { width: 5.082in; height: 11in; margin: 0 auto !important; }
.portrait .custom.pageIE { width: 9.5in; height: 9.5in; margin: 0 auto !important; }
.portrait .custom.pageSafari { width: 8.9in; height: 8.9in; margin: 0 auto !important; }
.portrait .custom.nomargins { width: 11in !important; height: 11in !important; }

/* even without margins, Safari enforces the printer's non-printable area */
.portrait .custom.nomargins.pageSafari { width: 9.32in !important; height: 9.32in !important; }

.landscape .custom.page { height: 5.082in; width: 11in; margin: 0 auto !important; }
.landscape .custom.pageIE { height: 9.05in; width: 9.05in; margin: 0 auto !important; }
.landscape .custom.pageSafari { height: 8.4in; width: 8.4in; margin: 0 auto !important; }
.landscape .custom.nomargins { height: 11in !important; width: 11in !important; }
.landscape .custom.nomargins.pageSafari { height: 9.32in !important; width: 9.32in !important; }
/*custom end*/

As you can see, the width for .portrait .custom.page was set to 5.082in, and the height set to 11in. This will scale the 1305×2823 image to fit on a single 8.5×11 page when printing. By flipping the values and setting them in .landscape you would be able to print a 2823×1305 image on a single landscape page. (Just to note, I only edited the values for .custom.page for portrait and landscape. The others would most likely need to be changed.)

Next you need to add an option for your new paper size to the "paperSize" selection tag in the "printOverlay" section of templates in viewerCustomization.js. Your select tag should end up looking something like this:

<select data-pcc-select="paperSize" class="pcc-print-select">
    <!-- US and International-->
    <option value="letter"><%= paperSizes.letter %></option>
    <option value="legal"><%= paperSizes.legal %></option>
    <option value="tabloid"><%= paperSizes.tabloid %></option>
    <option value="foolscap"><%= paperSizes.foolscap %></option>
    <!-- A formats-->
    <option value="a3"><%= paperSizes.a3 %></option>
    <option value="a4"><%= paperSizes.a4 %></option>
    <option value="a5"><%= paperSizes.a5 %></option>
    <!-- Architectural-->
    <option value="a6"><%= paperSizes.a6 %></option>
    <option value="a"><%= paperSizes.a %></option>
    <option value="b"><%= paperSizes.b %></option>
    <option value="c"><%= paperSizes.c %></option>
    <option value="d"><%= paperSizes.d %></option>
    <option value="e"><%= paperSizes.e %></option>
    <option value="e1"><%= paperSizes.e1 %></option>
        
    <option value="custom">Custom</option>
</select>

The new print option should now appear in the PrizmDoc print settings when selecting a paper size, and it should print the image on a single page.

One thing to note is that you will have to do this for each differently sized image. If you are unsure of the size of uploaded documents, this solution will most likely not be usable.

Users want the ability to have all the documents that they view initially open with the same Zoom Percentage. How can I accomplish this?

Setting the zoom percentage is possible in PrizmDoc. You can listen in on the ScaleChanged event, which is triggered whenever your user changes the zoom level of the Viewer. For more information, refer to the EventType section of the PCCViewer help topic.

Then you could take that value, store it however you want, and use it to set the initial zoom factor of the page upon loading the Viewer using setScaleFactor. For more information and a code sample, refer to the Setting the Initial Zoom Factor help topic.

Can I use all of the features and configuration options in PrizmDoc Cloud-Hosted that I can in PrizmDoc Self-Hosted?

Currently, PrizmDoc Cloud does not allow for editing the server central configuration parameters, but the defaults have been set to allow for more complex documents that might otherwise fail in order to account for the lack of ability to modify these options.

Where does PrizmDoc store E-Signatures and how can I retrieve them?

PrizmDoc does not store E-Signatures on the server. However, PrizmDoc does store them in the browser’s local storage so that an end user can use the same signature across multiple documents and multiple sessions within the same browser.

In the Viewer Sample, end users are able to save their individual signatures for their own record using the “Download Signature” button under the Manage E-Signatures menu. This will download a plain-text JSON file of the selected signature.

In the E-Signing Sample, if you want to retrieve the E-Signature from your own browser, you can open the developer tools (F12 on Chrome), go to the application tab, select local storage, and inside you can find the JSON of the E-Signature in the value of pccvEsignSignatures.

We are in the process of converting multiple Microsoft Office documents to PDF files and noticed a few PowerPoint files are returning the following:

“errorCode”: “CouldNotConvert”.

What could be causing this issue?

This issue can occur specifically with PowerPoint files when using PrizmDoc’s MSO feature or PrizmDoc Cloud. When a document is marked as final, it becomes non-editable and the MS Office API does not allow the document to be edited and returns “errorCode”: “CouldNotConvert”.

Currently the only work around is to open the PowerPoint file in its native application and remove the Mark as Final flag and save the file.

At the time of writing, there exists a pending feature request for the ability to remove this flag automatically. The feature request can be seen here.

We are interested to know how well the cloud offering
scales. For example, can we process thousands of transactions per second? Is there a limit to the number of transactions that we can use
concurrently?

The limitation will vary depending on the size of the documents and the type of work being performed on them.

PrizmDoc Cloud utilizes AWS servers to scale our services as demand increases, and we do currently rate limit total requests which should not exceed 100 requests within an eight second window. The window is rechecked every four seconds to determine if the rate limit is still in excess.

PAS appears to be unable to retrieve my document. What could be the issue?

If PAS is trying to retrieve documents from a source with a bad SSL certificate or a self-signed certificate and it is not configured to allow bad SSL certificates, it will fail to retrieve the document and log a generic 580 error.

For more information about Viewing Session creation parameters, including acceptBadSslCertificate see here:

https://help.accusoft.com/PrizmDoc/latest/HTML/webframe.html#pas-viewing-sessions.html

What are the technical details/process of “Flattening” a PDF document?

It is possible to “Flatten” PDF documents in PrizmDoc Viewer. You can do this by converting the document to a raster format (TIFF is recommended for PDF conversion) using PrizmDoc’s Content Conversion Service, and then converting it back to PDF format. This will result in a PDF with a single layer and no hidden objects. However, this will usually lower the quality and increase the file size of PDFs that are largely text.

Here is an example workflow using the Workfile API and the Content Conversion Service API:

1. Create a WorkFile from PDF

POST {{pccisUrl}}/PCCIS/V1/WorkFile
Content-Type: application/octet-stream

{{file bytes}}

2. Initiate Conversion to TIFF

POST {{pccisUrl}}/v2/contentConverters
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "input": {
        "sources": [
            {
                "fileId": "{{fileId}}"
            }
        ],
        "dest": {
            "format": "tiff"
        }
    }
}

3. Poll until response[“state”] === “complete”

GET {{pccisUrl}}/v2/contentConverters/{{processId}}

4. Initiate Conversion from TIFF back to PDF

POST {{pccisUrl}}/v2/contentConverters
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "input": {
        "sources": [
            {
                "fileId": "{{fileId_from_Step3_output}}"
            }
        ],
        "dest": {
            "format": "pdf"
        }
    }
}

5. Poll again

GET {{pccisUrl}}/v2/contentConverters/{{processId}}

6. Download

GET {{pccisUrl}}/PCCIS/V1/WorkFile/{{fileId}}?ContentDispositionFileName={{desiredFileNameWithExtension}}