PDF Software for Enterprise
There are numerous opportunities to use the PDF standard within corporations. With tightening security controls and government regulations initiated from acts such as Sarbanes-Oxley the need for controlling electronic documentation is crucial. From security improvements to efficiency improvements, using a PDF creation tool such as Docudesk’s deskPDF PDF Writer is a clear and cost-effective way to govern electronic documents throughout the enterprise.
Document Security
Documents such as proposals, financials, and legal contracts are all subject to manipulation and can have significant consequences if not caught. Simply adding a zero in a financial statement or making a word singular by removing an “s” from a plural word in a contract can be disastrous. Without a secure mechanism to prevent unauthorized changes to a document, companies are subject to frequent exposures from lawsuits to SEC investigations. Fortunately, when using documents converted into PDF’s, documents are at a significantly lower risk of tampering. With 40-bit and 128-bit encryption, the PDF standard provides password restricted viewing, copying, and even printing. The PDF standard also allows the application of watermarking to enable users to “digitally emboss” their documents with their own unique watermark.
Further, when you make a document into a PDF, you strip any and all history of the document assuring viewers do not see edits and comments not intended for them. Many articles have been writen about Microsoft Word exposing this information have surfaced with this article being a recent illustration.
Business Efficiency
Another consideration for employing PDF’s in the workplace is business efficiency. The act of creating PDF’s with deskPDF is a one-step process which requires little if any training. With PDF’s users can greatly improve their business processes through emailing PDF documents or PDF forms rather than sending them via standard mail. This is a standard feature in deskPDF. Outside of the labor involved with addressing and shipping electronic documents, the costs associated with printing or faxing equipment, paper, ink, and packaging materials are often not taken into consideration. User guides, datasheets, contracts, pricing proposals, and numerous other documents are all perfect for sending electronically. If the recipient wishes to print the document, they are welcome to do so at their discretion. When documents are communicated electronically at a corporate level, with tens, hundreds or thousands of employees the return on embracing the PDF standard is immediate.
Resource Utilization
One often unrecognized benefit of the PDF standard is integrated compression capabilities that are found in the PDF format. The PDF standard masters what other standards have not been able to do in compression – the PDF format drastically reduces document size while actually improving the viewer’s perception of the document quality Given this knowledge, it is little wonder why IT management fosters their employee’s usage of PDF’s. From a resource utilization perspective, the file compression IT administrators found that using PDF’s significantly reduces costly bandwidth and storage. Five years ago file attachments were infrequent, where nowadays they represent over 30% of business email. Graphics, spreadsheets and Word documents frequently accompany email messages. Converting to a PDF reduces document size significantly; often times greater than 1000% corresponding to a significant savings in expensive email server storage and bandwidth congestion. The smaller file size also translates into a significant time savings for retrieving emails from the server.
Document Archival
Finally, it is worth noting that the PDF format is the ideal format for document storage and retrieval – also known as archiving. The fact that the PDF format is a self-contained, highly compressed, device independent media that effectively manages bitmaps, vectors, and searchable type makes the PDF standard the perfect format from which to base archiving and record keeping initiatives. The PDF standard is perfectly suited as a document archival tool because it incorporates both document level security and excellent compression. Unlike inferior bitmapped documentation archival methods, the PDF format provides several additional advantages crucial for an archiving format; including full text search capabilities, multi-page support and the ability to digitally sign PDF’s. PDF documents are readily searchable with common search tools, including Google’s search appliance, making it very transparent to the business, requiring little in the way of training. Deploying deskPDF throughout the enterprise allows everyone the ability to make archive-ready documents from any application whether from Microsoft Office, an internally developed application or another third party application.
deskPDF Enterprise Deployment
As part of enterprise deskPDF licenses, Docudesk provides the deskPDF MSI Configuration Tool (dCT) and an Microsoft Management Console ADM template to enable administrators to enforce corporate business policies and simplify deployment. The dCT is a “deployment wizard” which allows administrators to customize over 50 definable deskPDF parameters, associate administrator defined deskPDF profiles, and create the associated MSI transform file (MST). The ADM template and MMC facilitate deskPDF publication and integration with Active Directory and operates with both client and terminal services based deskPDF deployments.
This level of integration with business user directories and configurability greatly simplify application deployment as well as ensure that corporate PDF creation policies are followed.
Recommended Products:
deskPDF Standard
deskPDF Professional
deskPDF Standard for Terminal Services
deskPDF Professional for Terminal Services
Supplemental Products:
deskFont Business 100
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