Configuring Mobile Print Server

Overview

There are two sources of the configuration in the YSoft SafeQ Mobile Print Server (Mobile Print Server):

Local configuration:

Local configuration consists of two configuration files mps.config and conversion.config. Their purpose is to define specific options of one Mobile Print Server installation. All local values are loaded as soon as the Mobile Print Server service is started. Both files are located in <MobilePrintFolder>\Service\conf\. Without valid and fully defined local configuration the Mobile Print Server service can not run.

Configuration loaded from YSoft SafeQ Management Service (Management Service):

This configuration is loaded to the Mobile Print Server during startup and is refreshed every 15 minutes. If this configuration is not available during startup the Mobile Print Server waits indefinitely to receive any. In order to propagate changes immediately to Mobile Print Server, restart of the service Mobile Print Server is needed (Open services.msc, select service Mobile Print and restart this service).

Some fields from the YSoft SafeQ Management Service configuration can be overridden by the local configuration.

To configure Mobile Print Server in management interface follow the instructions below:

  1. Open the YSoft SafeQ management interface and log in as administrator.

  2. Choose tenant for which you want to configure Mobile Print Server and go to its tenant management page.

  3. On page navigate to System tab.

  4. To access all of the options for Mobile Print Server, Expert views have to be set.

  5. Open category Mobile Print Server.

Configuring Mobile Print Sever via management interface

Yellow marked settings can be overridden in the local configuration.

Functional settings

Option

Property name

Default

Description

Allow mobile print for anonymous users

enableAnonymousMobilePrint

Disabled

When is enabled, System accepts jobs for mobile print from user without authentication. If the user is unregistered, a new one will be created automatically using the email address of the sender. templateUserLogin property should be configured on YSoft SafeQ management interface, otherwise, the user will not be created, and the job will not be available for print.

Force B/W for Mobile print

mpsFinishingBW

Disabled

Mobile Print Server will force black/white printing.

Force duplex for Mobile print

mpsFinishingDuplex

Disabled

Mobile Print Server will force duplex printing.

Ignore e-mail body

mpsIgnoreBody

Enabled

If enabled and document contains any attachment, only attached file will be converted and email body will be ignored. If disabled, both body and attached file will be converted.

It can be overridden in the local configuration:

< mps ignoreMailBody = "false" >...

Print job title prefix

mpsJobPrefix

"Mobile print"

String that will be used as prefix for all print jobs received via Mobile Print feature.

Enable Mobile Print Server

enableMobilePrintServer

Disabled

Enables or disables the Mobile Print Server.

Unless this option is enabled the service can not fully start.

Ignored attachments

ignoredAttachments

ATT0000?.txt

The pattern of email attachments that are ignored.

Some email clients create unwanted attachments which should not be printed by YSoft SafeQ. For example some iOS clients create ATT00001.txt attachment even if email is sent with no attachment.

There is a functionality in the Mobile Print Server that helps to get rid of these unwanted attachments. It is configurable via Ignored attachments (ignoredAttachments) property in the System settings. You can specify ignored attachments here. Values must be separated by comma "," character. To insert a comma into the file name, you can use wild card characters "?" and "*" (similar to file search). Default value of the property is "ATT0000?.txt" to prevent unwanted attachments that come from iOS email clients by default.

All attachments matching Ignored attachments values will be ignored and Mobile Print Server will not send any notification about this event (it is only logged).

MPS default encoding

mpsDefaultEncoding

UTF-8

Default encoding used for txt files and non-HTML body. Mobile Print Server tries to detect encoding of mentioned files and if the detection fails, this encoding is used during conversion.

Cryptographic protocols for encrypted outbound communication

mpsHttpsSecurityProtocols

Ssl3, Tls, Tls11, Tls12

A list of cryptographic protocols for encrypted outbound communication from the YSoft SafeQ Mobile Print Server. Applied for all outbound connections, HTTP with the YSoft SafeQ FlexiSpooler, SMTP, POP3, IMAP and EWS with the mail server.

If any protocol is removed from the list, the YSoft SafeQ Mobile Print Server will not connect to any of the servers that only support the removed protocol.

For further details see Configuring cryptographic protocols for outbound communication and SSL/TLS Secure Channel - SCHANNEL - Troubleshooting.

The property can be overridden in the local configuration:

< mps securityProtocols = "Tls12" >...

Mailbox check timeout

mpsCheckTimeout

10000

Time interval to control mailbox in milliseconds.

It can be overridden in the local configuration:

< mps generalSourceCheckTimeout = "5000" >...

Fixing of PowerPoint files page size

correctSlideSize

Enabled

Correct incorrectly generated slide size in the PowerPoint files.

Despite saving slides to a specific format (A4/A3/Letter/Ledger) in PowerPoint, the files are not converted properly when printing over Mobile Print. This option allows Mobile Print Server to detect the incorrect page sizes and correct them.

Letter format can not be distinguished from the 4:3 format. In this case defaultPaperSize value is used to decide the output format. If defaultPaperSize is set to Letter, then the slides are printed as letter, otherwise, it is left in 4:3 format.

It can be overridden in the local configuration:


< mps correctSlideSize = "false" >...

Regional settings

Open category Regional settings instead of Mobile Print Server.

Option

Property name

Default

Description

Default paper size

defaultPaperSize

A4

The value uses Mobile Print Server as a default paper size for printed documents where no paper size is encapsulated in it (i.e. HTML, TXT, Email).

Supported values are: A4, Letter.

It can be overridden in the local configuration:


< mps defaultPaperSize = "Letter" >...

Notification settings

YSoft SafeQ Mobile Print Server provides highly customizable email notification about job processing. By setting the options listed below the administrator can customize and/or localize the notification emails sent to the user.

Settings for SMTP connection (for sending emails) Mobile Print Server uses general YSoft SafeQ SMTP settings. Ensuring that mail sending from MPS via SMTP works is crucial, as it is the only way how Mobile Print Server informs user about jobs processing results. images/s/-t6brkm/8803/3fowtp/_/images/icons/emoticons/warning.svg If secured connection for SMTP is used, pay attention if your server uses explicit or implicit security. In most cases, it can be recognized by port number used for SMTP. Port 587 is usually used for explicit security, which is supported by MPS, but port 465 is usually used for implicit security, which is not supported by Mobile Print Server. images/s/-t6brkm/8803/3fowtp/_/images/icons/emoticons/warning.svg

For more information about the notification email composition see Mobile Print Server - User mail notification composition.

Option

Property name

Description

Finish option black-white

mpsFinishOptionBw

Description of finishing option B/W set.

Finish option duplex

mpsFinishOptionDuplex

Description of finishing option Duplex set.

Job conversion failed

mpsJobConversionFailed

Description when a job failed to convert.

Job list footer

mpsMailFooter

Text below the jobs list should contain the link to the Mobile Print Server Web Interface (placeholder #MOBILEWEBINTERFACE#).

Job list header

mpsMailHeader

Text above the jobs list.

Job processing failed

mpsJobProcessingFailed

Description when a job failed to process (in case of general or unknown error).

Job send failed

mpsJobSendFailed

Description when a job failed to be sent to SafeQ.

Job was successfully processed

mpsJobSuccess

Description when a job was successfully processed and sent to SafeQ.

Mail authentication failed

mpsMailAuthenticationFailed

Text when the sender's email address is not registered to any user in SafeQ.

Mail duplicate address

mpsMailDuplicateAddress

Text when the sender's email address is registered to more than one user in SafeQ.

Mail header

mpsJoblistHeader

General notification mail header.

Mail footer

mpsJoblistFooter

General notification mail footer.

Mail send has failed

mpsMailSendFailed

Text when the sender's email address could not be verified, because of no connection to SafeQ.

Mail send was successful

mpsMailSendOk

Text when the email was accepted by the SafeQ Mobile Print Server.

Notify finish option forced

mpsNotifyFinishOptionForced

Text about which finishing options are set.

Send user notifications regarding successes

mpsMailUserSuccess

If enabled, the Mobile Print Server will send mpsMailSendOk notifications regarding successful jobs.

Send user notifications regarding failures

mpsMailUserFailure

If enabled, the Mobile Print Server will send users mpsJobConversionFailed, mpsJobSendFailed and mpsJobProcessingFailed failure notifications.

Local configuration - mps.config and controllerIPs.config

In general local configuration is used to define job sources (email and folder sources) and communication channels. An administrator is to set different local configuration values per every instance of the Mobile Print Server. Most of the local configuration values are defined during installation.

The configuration files are similar to the configuration in YSoft SafeQ Mobile Print Server 5 with some differences.


The major version number is necessary to define in main configuration tag (mps) for version 6.* of YSoft SafeQ Mobile Print Server.

<mps version="6">...

Folder sources

Folder source is a local or network path where users can upload jobs via web or 3rd party interface. Mobile Print Server checks those folders periodically and transfers them to the YSoft SafeQ. There can be one or more folder sources defined. Each source is defined by one add tag with its attributes which is inside folderSources tag.

If the management server is installed on different IP from the Mobile Print Server Path to source folder location. For installation on the same server as the web interface resides the default folder source setting can be used without any changes, otherwise, proper IP address and path has to be defined.

Option

Default

Description

host

N/A

IP address of the YSoft SafeQ Management Server.

path

N/A

The absolute local path on the YSoft SafeQ Management Server where the jobs are uploaded.

host and path fields together build the UNC network path to the folder.

Preferred way of path definition on localhost (127.0.0.1) is full widows path with driver letter on the beginning.

There may be a $ sign in the path field because Windows considers these paths as shared network ones (i.e. C$\SafeQ6\SPOC\server\mobile\).

userName

N/A

Optional. Credentials of the user who is authorized to access the folder. If the userName is not defined it uses credentials the Mobile Print Server is running under. In this case, folder sources have to be created with the same read/write rights as the Mobile Print Server credentials.

password

N/A

Optional. Password can be defined by plain text or encrypted (i.e. code,3,52,90,-91,44,-90,62,-101 - see section Password encryption).

downloadInterval

1000

Interval in milliseconds of checking the folder.


Examples of folderSources configuration

< folderSources >
<!-- SPOC running on the same IP as MPS -->
< add host = "127.0.0.1" path = "C:\SafeQ6\SPOC\server\mobile\" >
<!-- SPOC running on the different IP than MPS. Credentials provided. -->
< add host = "168.192.0.11" path = "C$\SafeQ6\SPOC\server\mobile\" userName = "Administrator" password = "code,3,52,90,-91,44,-90,62,-101" downloadInterval = "1000" />
</ folderSources >

Email sources

Mobile Print Server can operate one or more email sources that are checked periodically. Each source is defined by one add tag with its attributes which is inside emailSources tag.

Option

Default

Description

type

N/A

Protocol for retrieving emails from a mailbox.

Supported values are Imap, Pop3, Exchange. (Exchange web services - EWS is used to connect when Exchange connection is chosen)

host

N/A

Host name or IP address of the mail server.

domain

N/A

Domain of the user, this is necessary only for Exchange type

userName

N/A

Mailbox address, that is checked periodically for new emails. Only local part of address ( username) is needed for some systems (typically for Exchange).

password

N/A

Password of the mailbox. It can be defined by plain text or encrypted (i.e. code,3,52,90,-91,44,-90,62,-101 - see section Password encryption).

port

993

Port number of the mail server. This setting is ignored for Exchange type.

Standard email ports are:

  • POP3: 110 insecure / 995 secure

  • IMAP: 143 insecure / 993 secure

secure

True

Enables secure communication to the mail server. This setting is ignored for Exchange type.

Supported values are:

  • True - SSL/TLS will be used for secure communication.

  • False - No security is used.

  • Auto - Mobile Print Server tries to recognize if secure communication is on or off.

implicitSecurityMode

True

Mobile Print Server uses this parameter for secure communication (secure is set to True). False value means communication with email server starts without SSL/TLS and secure layer is set during the communication, True value means that SSL/TLS is used from the beginning of the communication with email server.

For ports 995 and 993, implicitSecurityMode normally has to be true and for 110/143 it normally has to be false. This setting is ignored for Exchange type.

ignoreCertificateChainErrors

False

In case of a mail server with a self-signed certificate and secure communication (including Exchange communication, which is secure by default) , you have to set this value to True.

If set to True all mail server certificate validation errors are ignored, please consider the security risks.

maxEmailsPerBatch

50

Maximum number of emails downloaded at once (in one tick of the mpsCheckTimeout set).

networkOperationTimeout

60

Timeout in seconds for download of all email batch including all attachments. This setting is ignored for Exchange type.

failedFiles


Settings for files that were not processed successfully (folder where the files should be moved, time in seconds after which the files should be deleted). If no settings provided, the default values are used (default folder is „Failed“, default time is 7 days).

emailFailuresThreshold

5

A number of subsequent failing email attempts before an administrator is notified. A successfully sent email resets the counter.

Examples of emailSources configuration

<emailSources>
<!-- IMAP secure default -->
<add type="Imap" host="168.192.0.10" userName="[email protected]" password="code,3,52,90,-91,44,-90,62,-101" implicitSecurityMode="false" />
<!-- POP3 insecure -->
<add type="Pop3" host="168.192.0.11" userName="[email protected]" password="code,3,52,90,-91,44,-90,62,-101" port="110" secure="false" />
<!-- IMAP secure Exchange configuration with self-signed certificate -->
<add type="Imap" host="imap.company.com" userName="mps3" password="1234" ignoreCertificateChainErrors="true" />
<!-- IMAP secure, port 993 implicit security defined by the port 993 -->
<add type="Imap" host="imap.company.com" userName="[email protected]" password="1234" port="993" secure="true" implicitSecurityMode="true" ignoreCertificateChainErrors="true" />
<!-- IMAP secure, port 143 explicit security must be defined by implicitSecurityMode="false" -->
<add type="Imap" host="imap.company.com" userName="[email protected]" password="1234" port="143" secure="true" implicitSecurityMode="false" ignoreCertificateChainErrors="true" maxEmailsPerBatch ="30" networkOperationTimeout="60"/>
<!-- Exchange secure -->
<add type="Exchange" host="exchange.company.com" userName="[email protected]" domain="someDomain" password="1234" />
</emailSources>

Exchange connection via Exchange web services is possible only with MS Exchange Server 2013 and newer.

Notification settings

It is possible to enable/disable notifications from Mobile Print Server to user email. Configuration properties are divided to two separate options. First one for enabling success job notifications and second one for failure job notifications. So, it is possible, for example, disable only success job notifications, and still be notified, when job has not processed.

Option

Default

Description

mailUserSuccess

True

Setting to false will disable mpsMailSendOk notifications from Mobile Print Server regarding successful jobs.

mailUserFailure

True

Setting to false will disable mpsJobConversionFailed, mpsJobSendFailed and mpsJobProcessingFailed notifications from Mobile Print Server regarding failure jobs.


Connection to FlexiSpooler and Spooler Controller

The Mobile Print Server needs connection to YSoft SafeQ Spooler Controller (Spooler Controller) to authenticate users and to get its configuration. It also needs connection to YSoft SafeQ FlexiSpooler which is used as endpoint for sending jobs. FlexiSpooler must be in server mode and must run on the same machine as Spooler Controller.

There is a possibility to define multiple connections to these endpoints (FlexiSpooler and Spooler Controller) which are used for failover: If one endpoint is inaccessible Mobile Print Server switches connection to another one.

For the jobs sent through MPS to be correctly accounted a Ghostscript of version higher than 9 has to be installed on the FlexiSpooler server. For more information please refer to the Print Job Parser Configuration page.


Defining connection addresses

Addresses for endpoints can be defined in file controllerIPs.config. The file is structured as a simple JSON string array.


[ "127.0.0.1" , "10.1.2.3" ]

Addresses in this file are automatically updated by Mobile Print Server according to the current Near Roaming Group (NRG) controller addresses (if the administrator adds a new node into NRG, addresses are automatically updated after start of Mobile Print Server or after reconnecting to another endpoint because the current is unavailable.

Configuring Spooler Controller connection details

Details for Spooler Controller connection could be set in communicator tag in mps.config file.

Option

Default

Description

controllerPort

5555

Port number for connection to Spooler Controller

connectionLostTimeout

10000

Mobile Print Server uses heartbeat to check the availability of its Spooler Controller, if it is unresponsive for the specified time (4 seconds by default), Mobile Print Server try to connect another endpoint (failover) if it is defined or stops working until the connection is restored.

certificateStore

My

For secure communication, Mobile Print Server needs a certificate to authenticate itself. It looks for it in the Windows certificate store specified by this option (Personal store by default).

Supported values are:

  • My

  • AddressBook

  • AuthRoot

  • CertificateAuthority

  • Disallowed

  • Root

  • TrustedPeople

  • TrustedPublisher

certificateThumbprint 1

N/A

If left empty, plain communication is used. Otherwise, Mobile Print Server will look for a matching certificate signed by a trusted authority and use it to authenticate itself to Controllers (and it will negotiate encryption with it).

The "encryption" (from MU14) variable must also be set.

encryption 1

(from MU14)

Plain

Encryption key lengths :

Supported values are (case sensitive):

  • Plain

  • Aes128

validateServerCertificateHost 1

true

By default when authenticating a Controller, Mobile Print Server also checks if one of the IPs/hosts in the Controller certificate's subject alternate name matches its IP/host. It is not recommended to turn off this option.

Note: 1

These variables are only local configuration.


Examples of Spooler Controller connection configuration

<communicator connectionLostTimeout= "10000" controllerPort= "5555" certificateStore="My" certificateThumbprint="77948B8C50205FB8F1EC1AB32EF4F708A65F5422" encryption="Aes128" />

Configuring HTTP connection to FlexiSpooler

Mobile Print Server uses HTTP/HTTPS protocol for communication with FlexiSpooler. Details for this connection can be set in http tag.

Option

Default

Description

port

5559

Port number for connection to FlexiSpooler.

This value overrides the YSoft SafeQ Management Service property 'spoolerHttpPort'

secure

true

When true secured HTTPS protocol is used. Otherwise, plain HTTP is used.

compression

true

When true, Mobile Print Server uses GZip to compress its HTTP requests, to transfer jobs faster and save network bandwidth.

maxConnections

100

The limit for outgoing HTTP connections on the server side.

requestTimeoutInMinutes

10

Timeout for http requests. Mobile Print Server transfers job data to FlexiSpooler via HTTP/HTTPS, that can take a while depending on job size and network speed, if these transfers fail due to timeout, a higher value might be necessary.

ignoreCertificateChainErrors

true

This allows a self-signed certificate to be used on the server FlexiSpooler for HTTPS authentication. If true, the certificate chain is ignored during validation.


Example of FlexiSpooler communication configuration


<http port= "5559" secure= "true" compression= "true" maxConnections= "100" requestTimeoutInMinutes= "10" ignoreCertificateChainErrors= "true" />

Error recovery

During processing of new jobs at one point a converted PDF file is created and sent to print server (Management Server or Site Server), this is usually the time where occasionally Antivirus SW can lock the converted file and the the printing process fails. To circumvent this situation a retry mechanism exists in Mobile Print, that will attempt to access the file multiple times with defined delay in between attempts.

Options

Option

Default

Description

fileReadAttempts

10

Number of attempts to open file before giving up.

fileReadAttemptDelaySeconds

2

Delay between attempts to open a file.

Examples

<errorRecovery fileReadAttempts="10" fileReadAttemptDelaySeconds="2"/>


Windows service recovery settings for the Mobile Print Windows service


  • Since YSoft SafeQ 6 MU26 the Windows service of Mobile Print is installed with error recovery settings set to:

    • First, second and subsequent failures of the service result in restarting of the service after 1 min

(Forceful) stopping of the Mobile Print Windows service

  • Either when MPS Windows service gets manually stopped or an unhandled exception occurs a stopping routine within the service is initiated

  • This stopping routine has a timeout for its graceful completion defined in seconds, that is configurable locally in mps.config with recovery errorRecovery → gracefulServiceStopTimeoutSeconds

  • If the stopping routine is unable to finish gracefully in the defined timeout the service is forced to shutdown (to avoid possible deadlock or hanging during stopping of itself)

Options

Option

Default

Description

gracefulServiceStopTimeoutSeconds

30

Timeout that is given internally to Mobile Print Window service stopping routine to stop the service gracefully, after the timeout the service is internally terminated

Examples

<errorRecovery gracefulServiceStopTimeoutSeconds="30"/>

Password encryption

To additionally encrypt email password, use web interface. Otherwise, the password will be displayed as plain text and will be legible. To do so, use Text encryption tool in web interface Dashboard.

  1. Put the email password into the field and press Encode button.

  2. Copy and paste your encrypted password into the mps.config file.


mps.config - example

<? xml version = "1.0" encoding = "utf-8" ?>
< mps defaultPaperSize = "A4" correctSlideSize = "false" securityProtocols="Tls12" version="6" > <!-- Use the parameter to overwrite the global SafeQ settings -->
< folderSources >
< add host = "168.192.0.11" path = "C$\SafeQ6\SPOC\server\mobile" userName = "Administrator" password = "code,-3,5,98,45,18,-7,-125,-92" downloadInterval = "1000" />
</ folderSources >
< emailSources >
< add type = "Imap" host = "192.168.1.1" userName = "[email protected]" password = "code,-41,-62,68,-106,13,21,-111,-57" port = "143" secure = "False" />
</ emailSources >
<communicator connectionLostTimeout="10000" controllerPort="5555" />
< failedFiles folder = "Failed" maxAge = "604800" />
<http port= "5559" secure= "true" compression= "true" maxConnections= "100" requestTimeoutInMinutes= "10" ignoreCertificateChainErrors= "true" />
</ mps >


Conversion configuration -
conversion.config

In the conversion.config file two types of elements are present.

Option

Description

For extension

This element describes the rules for processing the files according to their types. Files not defined by this rule will not be processed.

.pdf files are not converted and passed on to SafeQ without change, as it is a standard output format. All other formats need conversion to .pdf.

By default, all the extensions are converted by the built-in:

  • Aspose (convert-by="aspose"): .doc, .dot, .docx, .dotx, .docm, .dotm, .rtf, .xml, .odt, .ott, .htm, .html, .xhtml, .xls, .csv, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .xltx, .xltm, .ods, .ppt, .pptx, .pps, .ppsx, .pot, .potx, .odp, .txt, .fo, .svg, .xps, .epub, .bmp, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, .png, .gif, .emf, .ico

If you want to configure Mobile Print Server to convert certain documents with other conveters, you can use:

  • MS Office (suported version 2010)(convert-by="msOffice") can handle files: .docx, .doc, .odt, .rtf, .xlsx, .xls, .ods, .pptx, .ppt, .odp, .bmp, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, .png, .gif

  • Libre (suported version 3.6) (convert-by="libreOffice") can handle files: .docx, .doc, .odt, .txt., .rtf, .xlsx, .xls, .ods, .pptx, .ppt, .odp, .bmp, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, .png, .gif

  • iText (convert-by="iText") can handle files: .bmp, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, .png, .gif

  • Image Magic (convert-by="imageMagickCmd") can handle files: .bmp, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, .png, .gif

  • Plain text (convert-by="textFile") can convert only .txt files.

Options

Here you can define a few options for the converters. For example, if you want to use LibreOffice application for conversion, you have to set a path to it. MS Office path is stored in the Windows registry and the Mobile Print application is able to get it automatically. Other converters do not need this as they are embedded in Mobile Print application.

Also, if you want to convert plain text files (.txt) with Aspose using a specific font, specify it in options as in the example below. If not specified, Arial Unicode MS will be used, which can handle unicode characters like Cyrillic, hiragana and others.

Example


<? xml version = "1.0" ?>
< conversionConfig >
<!-- Mapping between extensions (use .ext format) and converters. -->
< for extensions=".doc, .dot, .docx, .dotx, .docm, .dotm, .rtf, .xml, .odt, .ott, .htm, .html, .xhtml, .xls, .csv, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .xltx, .xltm, .ods, .ppt, .pptx, .pps, .ppsx, .pot, .potx, .odp, .txt, .fo, .svg, .xps, .epub, .bmp, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, .png, .gif, .emf, .ico" convert-by = "aspose" />
<!--
Other converters:
<for extensions=".ods, .odt, .odp" convert-by="libreOffice" />
<for extensions=".bmp, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, .png, .gif convert-by="iText" />
<for extensions=".bmp, .jpeg, .jpe, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, .png, .gif convert-by="imageMagickCmd" />
<for extensions=".txt" convert-by="textFile" />
-->
< options >
<!--
These options are supplied to all the converters when initialized. for example:
<add key="conversionTimeout" value="300000" />
<add key="asposePlainTextFont" value="Arial Unicode MS" />
<add key="libreOfficePath" value="C:\Program Files (x86)\LibreOffice 3.6\program"/>
<add key="ensurePdfA" value="true"/>
<add key="pdfAConversionTimeout" value="120000" />
-->
</ options >
</ conversionConfig >

Tips and tricks

LibreOffice documents (.odt, .ods, .odp)

Some of more complicated LibreOffice documents may be converted incorrectly by Aspose converter. In this case please use LibreOffice converter (suported version 3.6) for the file conversion.

Images (.jpg, .gif, .png)

For .jpg, .gif and .png image formats, the default Aspose converter is slower than the alternative converters, especially with large files. If you expect high volumes of these and performance is critical, consider using ImageMagic converter for .gif and .png images and iText converter for .jpg images. Note that there might be some differences between the converters especially in regards to page layout.

Text file (.txt)

If you expect to process large .txt files (exceeding 400 kB or 100 pages), consider using textFile converter which is significantly faster for large .txt. files than the default Aspose converter.

ensurePdfA

This option is disabled by default. When is enabled, a second conversion will run for every processed file (this will prolong the time of document processing). The output file will be a PDF/A-1a. Enabling this option (setting it to true) could help when special (national) characters are wrongly printed. Aspose conversion is usually used for this conversion, but if Ghostscript (version 9 and higher) is installed, it is automatically used instead of aspose.

This option could be also set to "try". It means that conversion to PDF/A-1a is run, but if this conversion fails, original pdf is used (so the overal processing result is still sucessfull).

images/s/-t6brkm/8803/3fowtp/_/images/icons/emoticons/warning.svg When ensurePdfA option is enabled it will prolong the conversion time.

conversionTimeout and pdfAConversionTimeout

This options are timeouts used for basic conversion (conversionTimeout) and PDF/A-1a conversion (pdfAConversionTimeout). Option is set in miliseconds. If options is not set, not timeout is used.


Fonts configuration

Mobile Print Server uses fonts that are available in the system font folder as well as fonts stored in Mobile Print Server custom folder (the standard path is: <MobilePrintFolder>\Service\Fonts). Fonts used in LibreOffice and OpenOffice are distributed with Mobile Print Server in this folder.
If there is a need to use company-specific fonts or more unusual ones not being part of the system distribution nor Mobile Print Server distribution it is necessary to install these fonts on server where Mobile Print Server is running.

To install fonts you can either:

  • Copy fonts to directory <windir>\Fonts OR

  • Install every font by double-clicking on its source file OR

  • Copy fonts to directory <MobilePrintHome>\Service\Fonts

Encoding and fonts of text documents

While converting text documents to the PDF format Mobile Print Server needs to detect character encoding of the document, which is not always possible to do reliably. If the Mobile Print Server successfully detects the encoding it uses it for the text document conversion. On the other hand, if the detection fails, an encoding defined in the configurable property mpsDefaultEncoding (default value UTF-8) is used. Except the default value administrator can define any other national encoding that best fits for his purposes (i.e. WINDOWS-1250, WINDOWS-1251 etc.). Document conversion errors may appear when the Mobile Print Server fails to detect the encoding and the mpsDefaultEncoding is set to a bad value. In this case, the text document will be converted, but with a corrupted content.

Do not forget to set also proper font (for text files converted by Aspose convertor) that supports national characters if you encounter problems with encoding. This could be done within conversion.config file in options part: Arial Unicode MS or Calibri is recommended. The font must be present in the system.

Font for text files

<options>
<add key= "asposePlainTextFont" value= "Calibri" />
</options>