There are certain differences in terms of functionality and possible uses of the two ways primedocs can be called for document creation from the outside. This chapter is intended to provide information about what should be considered. However, it is only a summary of the most important points, for detailed explanations the respective detail pages of the corresponding comparison category are linked.

Call

Client:

DeThe call via the client can be done in two ways:

• Via an executable connect file (.pdck/.pdcx) for structured XML

• Via the primedocs shell for unstructured XML. The client is able to process unstructured XML to structured XML via the XML transformer using XSLT.

Server:

• The call via the Document Creation Server is only possible with structured XML. If a third party application is to generate documents via the DCS, the application must be able to prepare the data needed for primedocs according to the Connect schema.

• Not all commands are available for calling via the server link to commands.

Processing

Client:

• During client-side processing, dialogs such as the Document Parameter, Recipient Dialog or TemplatePicker are available. The user is able to still enter data during the process and cancel if necessary.

• The client can process only one Connect call at a time. The processing of multiple Connect requests is executed sequentially.

Server:

• No dialogs are available for server-side processing. All relevant data must be transferred in the Connect when it is called. It is not possible to intervene in the process after the call. This means that the specified template must be uniquely identified when it is called up via the server. If several or no templates are found for the specified filter criteria, this leads to an error and the process is aborted.

• The server is able to process several requests in parallel.

Conversion to PDF:

The ConvertToPdf command can be called both in the server and in the client. Decisive for the creation of PDFs in the client is the call of the corresponding button in the ribbon by the user. Here, Word's own functionality is called so that high-quality files are created at the end of the document creation process.

It works differently with PDF creation via the Document Creation Server. Because often not all or even any Microsoft Office products are installed on a server environment, primedocs handles the PDF creation itself. We use third-party software for this purpose.

Result

There are two types for the result of a Connect call:

• Generated document

• XML response with the status of processing (ConnectorResult)

Client:

A call via the client returns one or more documents of the specified type. Additionally, the XML response can be returned optionally. The resulting ConnectorResult is stored in the directory where the connect file was executed.

Server:

The server can only return one response. This is either the ConnectorResult in case of errors, or a document in case of successful processing. The server's response is returned as a FileStream and is stored in the download folder.

Single processing versus batch processing

Single processing:

In single processing, only one document is generated. All the above mentioned points apply without any further restrictions

Batch processing:

In batch processing, the main difference between client and server is that the server can return only one document, as mentioned above. The client, on the other hand, can create a separate document for each document in the batch and open it directly. Therefore, it is essential to specify the Merge command for server-side batch processing at the batch level. If several single documents are to be created in a batch via the server, then the SaveAs command must be defined for each document. The Merge command is still necessary, otherwise the server will not accept the request.