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On Monday 11 December 2006 16:44, Neil Williams wrote: > On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:59:09 +0000 > > Tom Potts <tompotts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > 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 > > No, 3,000 x 800 = 2,400,000 > > AFAICT none of the branches are on anything more than 512kb broadband. > But that's a side issue - the transactions cannot be done in a > distributed method, there just sufficient speed. That's why the NHS > central spine is taking so long. These are not trivial problems that we > can hope to resolve on this list. > > > You say you receive PDF documents and have to convert then by hand? > > I receive PDF and have to read them to enter data by hand. > > I create my own data (that needs to correspond to the PDF but not be > created from it) using the Palm, pilot-qof and XML/XSL. > > > Well store the PDF for your records. > > I do - untouched. > > > Try using one of the many > > pdf2txt (choose format here) that are around to extract the data you > > need and use that for processing. > > It will require a lot more than that but I am working on it via the > cashutil project. > > > If its in an auditable form then > > it should be a piece of cake. > > It won't be in auditable form after conversion. > > >You can then, if you must generate pdf > > I don't generate PDF, I receive PDF. In the absence of any standard > format, PDF is all I can use. > > > It doesn't even need to be stored as a PDF - you just have to be able > > to generate the same document on demand. > > Not true - I need to store the original, untouched. > > Trust me, there is no off-pat solution here. I've been working on a > method for over two years. > > Parsing the PDF doesn't get me any closer to the necessary data entry, > yet. OK so what your saying is that your life is being made difficult because your forced to use paper or the computer equivalent - due to the Office mentality! Not yours necessarily but the general malaise. a) Oh look lets make a PDF document with our order/information buried deep inside it so, from a computer point of view is damn near useless. So you have to then type the information from it into another program: errors? Very 1980's. b)Now if you could have a bit of (choke choke) XML the same data would be probably 1/100(0?) the size and translate straight into wherever you want to put it. No errors. Why are you forced into a? Bloody microsoft f'ing office and if we force OO on people we're not exactly helping them much. This is repeated almost everywhere and people have to have broadband and terabyte storage because the signal to noise level is dropping off the bottom of the scale - but prettily so! Office is here to stay - until those companies that use it are out competed by companies that manage that data and not its appearance. And as for the NHS spine - is it possible for a committee of camels to do a worse design? Camel 1) Why cant we just use the net - it does everything we need and more? Camel 2) There isn't an RFC for 'draining the poor ignorant taxpayers dry' and my copy of Word wont save the version I've written in the standard format for RFC's. I do, however, have a document that says most of our suppliers have got their noses so deep in trough they're not going to say anything but its in word97 so no one can read it. I should make it clear that that last comment is in no way aimed at Neil. 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