[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
> There simply isn't time to send company data to and from a central > server with a national company when each of 800 branches is making > 3,000 transactions a day. Broadband simply cannot cope. 3000 transactions a day and broadband cant cope?- you seem to have major league bloatware already! One company I worked for did 10 times that using EDI and dial up - one phone line! Now if you actually sent the data that constituted transaction and not the repeated/redundant data .... I'm not sure what the taxman think they need but a simple text document of a bank statement can be stored and electronically 'proved' original in a few k per page - as easily as the same data at 300k+ per page in word. I get the impression you are managing real documents - so you have to store them safely and in a way you can access them easily. That doesn't mean you have to bloat the computer system with them - just the pertinant data. You say you receive PDF documents and have to convert then by hand? Well store the PDF for your records. Try using one of the many pdf2txt (choose format here) that are around to extract the data you need and use that for processing. If its in an auditable form then it should be a piece of cake. You can then, if you must generate pdf on the fly for the confirmation process if it must be done on paper. It doesn't even need to be stored as a PDF - you just have to be able to generate the same document on demand. Its pretty easy - or it was last time I did it. 1 Proforma PDF file for every document type, only 1 lot of data for each document. No need for broadband and terabytes of repeated data. And you can choose to use the data you need in the way you want it. Just because your fed ordure doesn't mean you have to handle it all the time. Unless you buy from M$. I know that sounds a bit glib (which library that?) but let the computer work on the data and not the rubbish and it will fly! Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html