We use PlanetPress Production to create PDF files for a variety of uses. We do not use any of the index files that PlanetPress Image can create. What are the differences or advantages of using PlanetPress Image versus the "Create PDF" Task? Is the underlying interpreter identical? Is one faster than the other? Does Image run in multiple threads?

Thank You,
Brandon

Brandon,

The main difference is that the Create PDF task doesn't have any user-definable configuration. It creates a PDF of a default quality, with default settings, no protection, etc. Also, Create PDF is an action task that's syncroneous to your process, meaning the rest of your process has to wait for the PDF to be created before continuing and grabbing another input.

The Image task, on the other hand, sends its data to the Image Services, which can process asyncroneously and in multiple instances (which can be configured in the PlanetPRess Workflow preferences, under the Messenger section, "PlanetPress Alambic" instances). Also, Image has your graphics compression settings, security settings, PDF metadata, etc.

Oh, and PlanetPress Image can output to other formats than PDF too, including JPG and TIF amongst others. Create PDF, obviously, only does PDF.

Brandon,

PlanetPress Image has many additional features that Create PDF doesn't have, such as:

- The ability to control the Job Options, such as the image quality, fonts embedding, security settings for pdf files, etc...
- Image can be used as both an action(through the Digital Action action) or as an Output, while Create PDF can only be used as an Action.
- Image is a separate service than Watch, and therefore it is possible to set it up on it's own machine, and create a machine dedicated to Image. This can result in faster performances in terms of pdf creation.
- Image is required to create the .pdi indexes needed by PlanetPress Search.
- Image incorporates an Email output, so you can create a pdf AND email at the same time, without having to use two actions to do it like with Create PDF.
- Image can produce other image formats.

As you can see, there are many advantages to Image. However, Image is part of the PlanetPress Imaging package, and needs to be bought separately than PlanetPress Workflow.

Hope that helps!

Regards,
Raphaël Lalonde Lefebvre

Thanks for the info!