Nordic Star Products 4.3A - Manual (Page 25)

Overlay files and cover sheets
XFAX - User’s Guide 4.3a 25
8. Overlay files and cover sheets
Overlay files are files store in the XFAX fax format which can be used as cover
pages or merge on to each fax page sent as a form template for example. This
makes it possible to send faxes with a very nice layout. For example you can
send order confirmations with your logotype and other form elements being
merged on to raw text data which contains the order data.
8.1 Using overlay files as forms and cover pages
In order to generate an overlay file you use the XFAX Windows client. Put
together your document in an application such as Microsoft Word and then print
the document choosing the XFAX printer. When the XFAX dialog 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/covers directory. This file can then be used as an overlay file.
In order to use an overlay file with faxsend you can do this:
faxsend –overlay /etc/xfax/covers/orderform 55576861 orderdata.txt
You can also use one overlay file as cover page and another overlay file as form
for the rest of the pages:
faxsend –cover mycover –overlay_repeat –overlay_skip 1 –overlay
orderform 55576861 orderdata.txt
This is an easy way for adding a form including the company logo to outgoing
purchase orders or to add a nice layout in an e-mail to fax gateway for example.
8.2 Cover sheets the old way
It is quite easy to make neat cover sheets, page headings and page footings in
XFAX with logotypes and other refinements. The principle is that you design
your cover sheet (or whatever) in some suitable program which can make a print-
out in the form of PCL code; to be more precise the data which is generated by
an HP Laserjet Plus, for the file. For example, you can use Word or Pagemaker in
Windows. You simply position the codes in the document where you want to
have the name of the sender, recipient, etc. These codes should be in a typeface
that means that the text is stored as text and not converted to screen data. In order
to avoid this you should use the typefaces that have been built into XFAX. These
are the same typefaces that are in a Microsoft Z1A font cassette. These typefaces
are marked with a small printer in the typeface list in the application when the
right printer is 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 real values 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 the values given. If, for example, you have set in the code “:REC:” in the
cover sheet template ETCDIR/cover.icab where you want to have the recipient’s