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From: Ted on 31 Aug 2009 11:12
On Aug 28, 1:13 pm, "John H Meyers" <jhmey...(a)nomail.invalid> wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:26:15 -0500:
>
> > Would suggest that you find a different PDF app for this purpose-
> > one that can run silently and automatically generate file names.
>
> How would automatically generated file names
> ever be mentally connected with what each file is about?
>
> If you want separate files, it seems to me
> that sooner or later you'll have to get down to the business
> of personally naming them so that you'll later recognize them,
> unless you have a way of "content searching" your "printed PDF's"
> that will find what you want without needing the help of a document name.
>
> Or, perhaps an app which could automatically put the entire "summary" line
> of each message, as in the mailbox window, as the name of each PDF file,
> perhaps even setting the "modification" time per the "Date:" header,
> thus making a directory of PDF files
> look much like the original mailbox of messages --
> I bet you could really sell that one!
>
> --

John,

I like your file naming idea. Here's the latest on my print effort.
FYI, I'm using Eudora 7 on XP and Adobe Acrobat Professional 7. When
I select (highlight) the emails to print, each email is printed to its
own pdf with file names of the path and an incremented number.
Several problems. 1) Inconsistent occurrences of printed emails with
only the summary line printed at the top of the page. The file name
of these seem like a temporary name unlike the ones that print
correctly. 2) The summary line at the top of the page is sometimes not
associated with the email, i.e. from another email. 3) The order of
the printed emails are not the order of the selected emails. 4) Going
back to the file names. It is impossible to relate the file name back
to the email. Including a sequence number and the date and time in
the file name would be VERY helpful.

I must have run a hundred tests. Finally got acceptable print files.
By the way, I even tried Adobe Acrobat 5 without success, mainly
because it doesn't print the summary line at the top. Without the
summary line, one doesn't have the date and time of the email.

One other oddity. I copied the mbx files because Find and Transfers
move the emails. When I restore the mbx files, it has a ? in the
status column. How do I fix that?

Thanks much guys,

Ted
From: Ted on 31 Aug 2009 16:57
On Aug 31, 10:41 am, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfr...(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:12:36 -0700 (PDT), Ted <ted.kobaya...(a)gmail.com>
> declaimed the following in comp.mail.eudora.ms-windows:
>
>
>
> > I like your file naming idea.  Here's the latest on my print effort.
> > FYI, I'm using  Eudora 7 on XP and Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.  When
> > I select (highlight) the emails to print, each email is printed to its
> > own pdf with file names of the path and an incremented number.
> > Several problems.  1) Inconsistent occurrences of printed emails with
> > only the summary line printed at the top of the page.  The file name
> > of these seem like a temporary name unlike the ones that print
> > correctly. 2) The summary line at the top of the page is sometimes not
> > associated with the email, i.e. from another email.  3) The order of
> > the printed emails are not the order of the selected emails.  4) Going
> > back to the file names.  It is impossible to relate the file name back
> > to the email.  Including a sequence number and the date and time in
> > the file name would be VERY helpful.
>
>         Would you prefer the old Scansoft PDF Create! package? (I think
> Nuance now owns them -- along with OmniPage)
>
>         I just did a test, selecting three messages from my Eudora Inbox.
> (Eudora 6.x)
>
>         My default configuration is "query name", but it has options for
> using a specified name (with option to append a (#) to the file name if
> it already exists).
>
>         Another option is to specify the directory to save in, but auto name
> the files. And the file names I'm getting from Eudora are: <sender
> name><m#_d#_yyyy h#_.pdf> (I think it's trying to put the full date-time
> but runs out of space).
>
> E:\UserData\Dennis Lee Bieber\My Documents>dir /OD *.pdf
>  Volume in drive E is Data
>  Volume Serial Number is 2626-D991
>
>  Directory of E:\UserData\Dennis Lee Bieber\My Documents
>
> <snip>
>
> 08/31/2009  09:49 AM           100,156 Bieber, Dennis L, 8_21_2009
> 06_.pdf
> 08/31/2009  09:49 AM            99,317 Richard Guenther, 8_24_2009
> 03_.pdf
> 08/31/2009  09:49 AM           159,359 Bieber, Dennis L, 8_28_2009
> 11_.pdf
>               13 File(s)     13,601,681 bytes
>                0 Dir(s)  232,642,752,512 bytes free
>
> E:\UserData\Dennis Lee Bieber\My Documents>
>
>         Also has options to append/overwrite/warn/etc. should a file name
> already exist -- which shouldn't happen given the names Eudora supplies
> to it.
> --
>         Wulfraed         Dennis Lee Bieber               KD6MOG
>         wlfr...(a)ix.netcom.com   HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

Dennis,

I downloaded PDF Create 6. When I try to test print 80 emails to a
folder, I get a few "Internet Explorer Script Error" messages and it
looks like the emails causing the message is not printed. The file
names of those that get printed are "eud##" where ## is incremented
by, I'm assuming, PDF Create. It looks like the script error doesn't
increment the ## in the file name causing another message that a
duplicate file name is being created.

Also, the print summary line at the top is not for the email that is
printed. It has a different subject and date. I'm assuming that is
an Eudora problem.

I've tried all kinds of different Printer Preferences and they all
result in some sort of different problems. I'm beginning to suspect
all the problems are coming from Eudora when printing a large number
of emails.

Long story, but I've got 1400+ emails to print to pdfs.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Ted
From: John H Meyers on 31 Aug 2009 19:37
On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:12:36 -0500, Ted wrote:

> I copied the mbx files because Find and Transfers move the emails.

What do you mean?

Hold down either keyboard Shift key;
this makes any "Transfer" a "copy," rather than a "move"
(even when performed from a results list of "Find messages")

> When I restore the mbx files, it has a ? in the status column.

You most likely lost the TOC (index and status) file
corresponding to an MBX file;
the "?" status, per the Eudora manual, signifies "Recovered,"
and is the status of TOC entries which had to be created
during a rebuild of the TOC file.

> I'm beginning to suspect all the problems are coming from Eudora
> when printing a large number of emails.

I seem to recall that the police inspectors involved in the cases
of such (fictional) luminaries as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot
would always "grab the nearest suspect" to close their cases,
but as we know, it was nearly invariably the wrong party.

The naming of "print to disk" files is controlled solely
by the "print to disk" software.

Here is one typical output file name of Dennis Lee Beeber's software:
"Bieber, Dennis L, 8_21_200906_.pdf" (30 characters, followed by .pdf)

Here is one typical output file name of mine, using "CutePDF" (free version):
"Dell Services, 02_14 PM 7_28_20.pdf" (31 characters, followed by .pdf)

As you can see, my file names got the time of day first, Dennis' not
(is this due to a different date display format?);
my file names all have 31 characters, followed by .pdf,
while Dennis' posted file names all seemed to have 30 characters, followed by .pdf
(are the "wrapped lines" which I see due to some extra unseen character?)

Dennis' software is described as also permitting other sorts of
generated output disk file names; CutePDF (free version)
permits me to manually rename each file,
via the standard Windows "Save file as" control.

If I open any individual Eudora message and then either "Print preview"
or directly print it, both the printed header and CutePDF's file name
will be complete, e.g.:

"Dell Services, 02_14 PM 7_28_2009, 30 Day Notice - Don't Let Your.pdf"
(corresponding to the same message I listed above -- the apparent
"subject" truncation is actually Dell's)

When I merely select the message from the summary (mailbox) listing
and print it, both the heading and title appear truncated to 31 characters;
this occurs even when printing to a real printer, so the truncation
might be Eudora's own doing, which, if so, supplies only the first
31 characters, but not the wrong heading (any mismatched heading
would seem more likely due to a TOC mismatch,
which might surface even by merely displaying the message in Eudora).

Despite any truncated printed heading, the actual printed headers
(From/To, Subject, Date) would supply the original complete information.

Note that CutePDF replaces (with underscores) any characters
which would be invalid in file names; otherwise it uses
the exact title line which would normally be printed
(I don't know what Dennis' software is doing,
since I can't see his original messages).

I thought I'd try comparing the results of some other email software:


Outlook Express 6:

o My mailbox message list does not permit the printing of even one single message,
no less all of them at once ("Print" is always grayed out), so it seems necessary
to individually open every single message, then request its printing.

o When I open one message at random and "Print" to CutePDF, the file name is:
"mhtml_mid___00000000_.pdf" -- wow, very handy?

o The next file name increments the number -- but first, Outlook Express
did not even remember which printer I wanted, so I had to first re-select "CutePDF"!

o The page heading I got says "Main Identity" -- wow, what a Microsoft "Innovation"!


Thunderbird 2.0.0.23:

o Both the page title and file name are the exact subject (no date/time).
o I had to manually rename files when the subject was the same.
o At least Thunderbird can print messages from the list,
and even remembered my printer selection.


So, how would you like to import all your mail to one of these,
and then print 1400 of them to individual PDFs?

Personally, I'm sort of happy that I stayed with Eudora :)

--
From: John H Meyers on 1 Sep 2009 04:45
On Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:50:42 -0500, Dennis Lee Bieber kindly replied:

> With M$ viewer active in Eudora,
> the file name generated ends up being:
>
> file___E__Temp_eud5.pdf

This appears to be derived from the temp file name
(in temp file directory selected by Windows)
where Eudora has first stored the HTML for IE's DLL to display.

With "Microsoft's viewer," a "Print preview" (presumably also "Print")
comes up with no nice "page header/footer" either,
other than "Page 1 of 4" (example) as a "page header,
and the filename (path) and date as a "page footer,"
which is similar to what I'd get if I used "Send to Browser,"
followed by "print" or "print preview" from my browser.

Only with Eudora's internal viewer
does one get a page header (and corresponding file name)
resembling a "summary" line from the mailbox,
and a page footer saying "Printed for My Name <me(a)mydomain> [page]"

Messages sent with elaborate HTML, however, might not look as desired
(for an accurate PDF) when viewed using the internal viewer.

So I guess "you can't have everything" -- or at least
not everything an OP might like, using any one single approach,
which might make it harder to "just automatically print 1400 emails to PDF"
without having to manually shift some gears while doing so.

--
From: Ted on 1 Sep 2009 13:33
On Sep 1, 1:45 am, "John H Meyers" <jhmey...(a)nomail.invalid> wrote:
> On Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:50:42 -0500, Dennis Lee Bieber kindly replied:
>
> > With M$ viewer active in Eudora,
> > the file name generated ends up being:
>
> > file___E__Temp_eud5.pdf
>
> This appears to be derived from the temp file name
> (in temp file directory selected by Windows)
> where Eudora has first stored the HTML for IE's DLL to display.
>
> With "Microsoft's viewer," a "Print preview" (presumably also "Print")
> comes up with no nice "page header/footer" either,
> other than "Page 1 of 4" (example) as a "page header,
> and the filename (path) and date as a "page footer,"
> which is similar to what I'd get if I used "Send to Browser,"
> followed by "print" or "print preview" from my browser.
>
> Only with Eudora's internal viewer
> does one get a page header (and corresponding file name)
> resembling a "summary" line from the mailbox,
> and a page footer saying "Printed for My Name <me(a)mydomain>  [page]"
>
> Messages sent with elaborate HTML, however, might not look as desired
> (for an accurate PDF) when viewed using the internal viewer.
>
> So I guess "you can't have everything" -- or at least
> not everything an OP might like, using any one single approach,
> which might make it harder to "just automatically print 1400 emails to PDF"
> without having to manually shift some gears while doing so.
>
> --

John/Dennis,

Microsoft Viewer was causing the problem. Thanks for the advice to
turn it off. You guys have been incredibly helpful.

John, you said:

"I seem to recall that the police inspectors involved in the cases
of such (fictional) luminaries as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot
would always "grab the nearest suspect" to close their cases,
but as we know, it was nearly invariably the wrong party."

Ha ha ha. That is funny. I got a big kick out of that. :) You are
so right, but I was close.

PDFCreate produces reasonable pdf file names. However, it causes
Eudora to crash randomly. But, I can live with it. Doesn't seem to
be the number of emails to print at one time. I print about 100
emails at a time.

Cute PDF only works by prompting Save As. OK for a small number of
emails to print. Agonizing for 1400.

If you can think how Eudora crashes randomly with PDFCreate, please
let me know.

Thanks again for your help. Are you guys involved in supporting
Eudora? I've been using Eudora for ten years or so and love it.

Ted
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