I was contacted by a customer recently who wanted to be able to link several different locations to a main server; he was a little shocked to learn that he had Web services.  With a simple adjustment to his current settings, his idea became reality and the issue was solved  - making him looking like a genius to his boss!

It happens all the time...

Staying current and keeping your software maintenance up-to-date is great; but the question you really should be asking yourself with an upgrade is: What exactly am I getting? 

Understanding what the new functionalities are and what they can do for you and your company is critical. The new functionality may lead you to quicker and more efficient ways to convert your documents.  Understanding the new capabilities can also lead to a different way at looking at your current problem and may lead to a new solution.

For example with the most recent release of Express 4.7 some of the added functionality includes:

• Web Services and Job Management (formerly Exponent) – provides intelligent job management and cross-platform integration options as part of a Services Oriented Architecture.
• Output to PDF/A (archival standard) and PDF/X (print standard) – generates these industry standard outputs from any of the hundreds of formats Adlib supports.
• PDF to PDF/A support - includes the new PDF/A conversion and validation functionality and is ideal for automated high-volume workflows which converts existing PDF documents directly into the PDF/A format.
• Added Support for InfoPath documents – added support for rendering Microsoft’s InfoPath forms to PDF, an increasingly popular form design tool. 
• Enhance image processing capabilities – expands the list of supported image formats and accelerates processing for rendering documents to image output.
• Automated Incident Information Collection – improves system administration by automatically retrying jobs and capturing detailed information for review without restarting the Server.
• nUp PDF Rendering - allows you to render 2 or more pages of the input document to each output PDF page. Now you can create “storyboards”.

Sure, upgrading allows you access to the latest and greatest... but know what you are getting when you upgrade. You might be surprised at the value it can bring to your workplace.

Peter Jonak
Customer Loyalty Representative
Adlib Software