The Many Benefits of PDFs (And The Easy Way To Create Them)

Whatever line of business you work in, you’ll probably deal with PDF files on a regular basis. It’s a flexible document format used for a wide range of purposes. And if you work in an IBM iSeries, System i or AS/400 environment, now there’s an easy way to create them…

Enter CoolSpools software. Developed by iSeries experts Ariadne Software, CoolSpools is a powerful, fully-featured spool file converter, offering an easy, customizable way to convert spool to PDF and a whole host of other useful file formats.

Back up a minute. What’s a PDF?

I’m sure you already know the answer to this one! Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format developed by Adobe. It was created over 20 years ago, and is one of the most commonly-used file formats today. Think of PDFs as the middle ground between an image file and a word-processed document. They can be read on screen, printed, or used by printers to produce publications.

How can CoolSpools help me create PDFs on my iSeries?

As a spool file converter, CoolSpools takes data from your iSeries spool files and converts it into the PDF format, making it readable by any operating system. This negates the need to enter the data manually – it’s all converted for you.

What if I need images in my PDF? Can CoolSpools handle that?

Absolutely. CoolSpools can insert JPEGs or GIFs into your iSeries PDFs, whether they’re company logos, watermarks, photographs or illustrations. Whatever images you need in your iSeries PDFs, CoolSpools can make it happen.

But I don’t just want a dump of my spool files in my PDFs! How do I control what goes in?

CoolSpools makes this easy, too. You can split your converted spool file into multiple PDF documents. Just tell CoolSpools the criteria of where you want to split (such as customer name or number, for example), and it’ll do it for you.

What if I want to add new pages to an existing PDF?

CoolSpools has it covered – even if the original PDF was not created using CoolSpools software.

The PDFs I produce contain sensitive information. Can CoolSpools handle this?

Of course. CoolSpools can password-protect and encrypt your PDF. You can restrict how your PDF is edited to ensure it’s not tampered with. And you can add a digital signature to prove that your PDF has not been amended since you created it.

Is creating PDFs all CoolSpools software does?

Not at all. CoolSpools also converts spools to XML, Excel, CSV, HTML, TIFF and RTF. It can also help manage emailing your files to multiple recipients.

Where can I learn more about creating iSeries PDFs with CoolSpools software?
Simple – head over to https://coolspools.com/ right away!