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References
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| The
Press
What magazines
wrote about VPE
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SDT - Software Development
Techniques, Issue 2 / 2002
Magazine for VisualObjects (VO) Developers |
| "For a long time I had tried to work
with build-in tools or simple enhancements... But more and more customers wanted to have
graphical printouts and preview options... In search of a suitable product, I seeked
through the Internet several times...
ReportPro
would have been the most obvious (ed.: ReportPro is included in VO), but had to
be ruled out because first of all the sources were not included and second the ptrDevice
(the tool for handcoded printouts) was no longer available in the current version.
Furthermore, ReportPro prolonged considerably the load times of a VO-program and increased
the installation size.
After that I took a look at List&Label:
it was closer to my requirements, but not completely.
Sometime I discovered Virtual Print Engine
in the Internet... The development of this software, which virtualizes printers, was
focused on performance. The demo was convincingly, a demo document with 132 pages was
created terrifically fast and could be scrolled forward and backwards
without any delay...
Also the sources of the demo programs were included and
appeared simple and easy to handle. Some things which are difficult to solve with other
printing tools, for example switching from portrait to landscape orientation within a
document or numbering pages in the style "Page x of y" are completely
unproblematic.
As a result I was convinced to have found the basis for my
printer classes and ordered the required licenses immediately."
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| Der Entwickler, 5 / 01, Germany (the
translated name is "The Developer") |
"By using the engine you easily
create hundreds of pages with text, images, graphical elements etc. ...
The development process is similar to a natural description of documents. ... This
conception can be implemented very simply and consistently with all
programming languages, whilst managing any possible task. ...
In conjunction with dycodoc the developer increases his productivity
as well as the convenience of the end user. ...
[Summary:] A small, powerful print engine"
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| Visual Developer Magazine, Vol. 10 No. 6
(Mar/Apr 2000), USA |
"... Virtual Print Engine has a
great deal more capability than I expected. It gives you tremendous
control over text-based reports that resembles what a word processor would do...
Furthermore it does these things very well. ...
There are two manuals, both very good.
[Summary:] Virtual Print Engine is an outstanding tool
for enhancing the print capability of your programs. Its print preview capability
and speed of output are second to none. The detailed control of your output, bar
codes, and charting capability just add more to an already great program.
My view: It will be a worthwhile addition to your programming library."
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| Der Entwickler, 5 / 99, Germany (the
translated name is "The Developer") |
| "[VPE] offers to programmers the opportunity to solve
complex printing problems with simple function calls. VPE focuses on the speed
of document creation. The engine is able to present a large number of objects with a
variety of parameters nevertheless in an easy way. ... Very meaningful
for the creation of reports is the ability to reference the positions of the last inserted
objects.
[Summary:] The functionalities of the objects are well
thought-out... The solution is in addition very fast... Because of the structured design
and the good documentation it is possible to gain quickly results after a short
settling-period."
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BasicPro, 5 / 99, Germany
(focused on software development using Visual Basic) |
Comparision Test VS-View vs. VPE
"Rightly VPE is called 'Engine': with more than 300 methods,
properties and events it offers nearly inexhaustible possibilities.
...
Compared to the VSPrinter-Control, you will notice the more extensive
configuration options in all areas, e.g. RTF-text. I could display an RTF version
of this article very pleasantly - much better than with the VSPrinter-Control.
...
VPE thinks in objects... this allows the clear inheritance of properties. ... With Chart-,
Barcode- and eMail-Functions, VPE offers the bigger functionality than
the VSPrinter-Control. ... Extensive is the list of supported image formats...
The documentation is very good. The methods, properties and events are grouped
into functional units and ordered in a sensible way, so even when reading the reference
you won't loose the overall view. ...
[Summary:] Do you want to create extensive documents with comprehensive RTF-support,
Barcodes, Charts and Interactive Objects? Then it's worth to get into the more
powerful VPE." |
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| Microsoft System Journal, 4 / 99 (German
Edition) |
"The printing works so
perfectly that I nearly had forgotten to mention it.
[Summary:] For a moderate price you receive a product with an extensive set of
functions." |
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News Ticker
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| 11/06 |
Port of VPE to Linux / Unix Platforms |
|
The German Internal Revenue Service (LfSt),
one of the highest tax authorities of the german state, develops a
software called ELSTER, which is distributed free of charge throughout
Germany to create electronic tax returns via internet. Since 1997 VPE
is integrated into ELSTER to print the tax relevant data.. IDEAL
Software and the LfSt now signed a wide-ranging cooperation agreement
to port VPE to the following platforms:
- All important Linux distributions
(Suse, Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu)
- Mac OS X PowerPC
- Mac OS X Intel
- Sun Solaris 10 Sparc 64-bit
The release of VPE for all above platforms is scheduled for Q2 2007.
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| 06/06 |
General License of the PDF Export Module for
ELSTER
The German Internal Revenue Service, one of the highest
tax authorities of the german state, develops a software called ELSTER, which is
distributed free of charge throughout Germany to create electronic tax returns. Since 1997
VPE is integrated into ELSTER to create printed tax forms. By acquiring a general license
of the PDF Export Module Enterprise Edition, future versions of ELSTER will create tax
returns as PDF files.
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| 11/04 |
US Presidential Elections and VPE
With
the software BallotNow by Hart Intercivic, Inc. ballots have been printed by VPE
for this years US Presidential Elections. As of last count, there were 2,152,051 Americans
that cast their ballot in the presidential election using ballots created and printed with
VPE.
Each ballot was unique due to a serial number barcode, which required that each single
ballot was generated by VPE.
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| 03/04 |
About Two Millionen End-User Installations
klickTel Inc. extends its VPE license in the 8th year: the new version of one of
the most sold German telephone-book CD's "Klicktel 2004" generates again all
reports using Virtual Print Engine.
Boris Polenske, president of klickTel Inc.: "We are very satisfied
with Virtual Print Engine."
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| 10/03 |
Arnold Schwarzenegger Elected With The Help of
VPE
With the software BallotNow
by Hart Intercivic, Inc. about 800.000 ballots for this years California Governor Recall
election were printed. Each ballot was unique due to a serial number barcode, which
required that each single ballot was generated by VPE.
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| 03/03 |
klickTel Inc. Extends License in the
7th Year
to use VPE in "Klicktel 2003"
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| 04/02 |
DATEV eG Acquires General Licence
The DATEV eG - with a yearly gross revenue of over one billion German Marks one
of Germany's biggest software companies - creates applications for tax advisers and attorneys. In one of the most sensitive fields of application, more than 240.000 PC
workplaces are supplied with DATEV's programs.
For a new project, the DATEV eG acquired a general license of VPE.
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| 03/02 |
DaimlerChrysler Motorsports Uses VPE
in the Formula-1
DaimlerChrysler uses VPE in the construction and
optimization division of its Formula-1 motors.
By using VPE, commented diagrams of parts of the physical motor control mechanisms are
created and printed.
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| 03/02 |
klickTel Inc. Extends License in the
6th Year
to use VPE in "Klicktel 2002"
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| 08/01 |
The Dresdner Bank Acquires Additional
General Licence
The Dresdner Bank, one of the five
biggest banks in Germany, creates a new software package which makes use of VPE. The
software for investment consultancy and wealth formation is used in the office
branches to assist the consultants in performing quick and individual customer advisory
service. Using VPE, the completed investment proposals are printed. The General License
allows the Dresdner Bank the uncomplicated software distribution to all related office
branches.
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| 03/01 |
klickTel Inc. Extends License in the
5th Year
to use VPE in "Klicktel 2001"
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| 05/00 |
klickTel Inc. Extends License in the
4th Year
to use VPE in "Klicktel 2000"
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| 03/00 |
50.000 full versions of VPE v2.4 distributed free of
charge
to German students within the scope of the
"Start Developing" campaign
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| 01/00 |
The Dresdner Bank Acquires Additional
Licences
The Dresdner Bank acquires additional SDK
licenses to use VPE within internal consultation software
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| 07/99 |
The Dresdner Bank Acquires General
Licence
to use VPE within their homebanking software
products
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| 04/99 |
klickTel Inc. Extends General License
in the 3rd Year
to use VPE in "Klicktel 99"
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| 03/99 |
The Universal Postal Union acquires a
world-wide unlimited license for VPE
The
Universal Postal Union (UPU) is the UN headquarter of all postal organisations
world-wide.
Claude Guillemain, UPU Development Manager, Switzerland:
| "Postal Services form part of the daily life over
the world. The Universal Postal Union (UPU), with headquarters in Bern, Switzerland, is
the specialized institution of the United Nations that regulates this truly universal
service.
The UPU recommends regulations for the Mail and Financial services of Postal
administrations including a lot of official forms when exchanging Mail or International
Money Orders. Postal Technology Centre, within the UPU, provides to Postal Organisations
applications for processing and tracking Mail and Money Orders, producing all the official
UPU forms with the Virtual Print Engine.
Mail forms cover mainly the description of mail exchanged between Postal Organisations
(receptacle, despatches or consignments contents) and statistical reports. International
Money Order forms cover mainly the description of International Money Orders exchanged
between Postal Organisations (list of Money Orders, description of a Money Order, payee
notification) and statistical reports.
Using the Virtual Print Engine produces a spectacular improvement of the performance
needed to print the official UPU forms during the operational process."
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| 07/98 |
The Universal Postal Union acquires General
License
to use Virtual Print Engine within 20 countries
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| 01/98 |
klickTel Inc. Extends General License
in the 2nd Year
to use VPE in "Klicktel 98"
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| 10/97 |
The German Internal Revenue Service
Acquires General License
Virtual
Print Engine used by all major German providers of accounting software
With its project 'ELSTER', the computer laboratory of the German
Internal Revenue Service in Munich (one of the highest tax authorities of Germany)
implemented an online transaction module for the transmission of tax-relevant data between
accountants and private households and the German tax authorities.
ELSTER is a SDK (Software Development Kit) which is offered to all
software companies at no cost. ELSTER is integrated in accounting software for accounting
companies and also in the mass software for private households.
The Virtual Print Engine is seamlessly integrated into ELSTER.
Beside the transaction module, VPE forms the main module within ELSTER. With the help of
VPE, all relevant data can be illustrated in a screen preview or it can be printed
directly.
| In that connection the computer laboratory of
the Internal Revenue Service in Munich comments:
'As a
part of the project ELSTER (short for Electronic Tax Return in German) programs for prints
and print previews were created fast and efficiently with the help of the Virtual Print
Engine.
VPE is a powerful tool and yet simple to apply. It can be used easily by Software
developers with little experience of programming under Windows. Anyone who had to create
applications for complex printer tasks requiring exact print previews based on
conventional Windows programming knows how extensive this can be.
The Virtual Print Engine is the alternative.'
Ferenc Szentivanyi, Dipl. Inform. (FH) (comp. science engineer),
Internal Revenue Service Munich
|
Since ELSTER is a tool for software developers, runtime
licenses for VPE result from using ELSTER. The German Internal Revenue Service decided to
acquire an unlimited general license, which is restricted to the integration of VPE into
ELSTER exclusively.
|
| 08/97 |
klickTel Inc. Acquires General License
to use VPE in the new version of the most sold german telephone-book CD
"D-Info97"
|
| A Selection of
our Customers |
- Mobil Oil Corporation, USA
- The Boeing Company, USA
- NASA, Johnson Space Center, USA
- Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, USA
- CITIBANK Diners Club Inc., USA
- Suzuki American Motor Corp., USA
- H & R Block Mortgage Corp., USA
- Baxter Healthcare Corporation, USA
- US Bankruptcy Court, Dallas, USA
- US Court of Appeals, New Orleans, USA
- US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC, USA
- Atos Origin
- Ministry of Justice, Québec, Canada
- Canadian National Railways, Canada
- Canada Life Assurance Company, Canada
- Great-West Life Assurance Company, Canada
- Maritime Life Assurance Inc., Canada
- Johnson Controls, Canada
- Federal Express Pacific Inc.
- Lloyds TSB Bank Plc, UK
- Fujitsu Computers, Finland
- Akzo Nobel, Netherlands
- Korean Patent Resources, Korea
- OFD - Germanys highest tax authority, Munich (General Sublicense)
- Ministry of Finance of the State of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
- AGFA, Germany
- BMW AG, Germany
- Siemens AG, Germany
- Dresdner Bank AG (General License for Homebanking Software), Germany
- Nestlé Deutschland AG, Germany
- Axa-Colonia Life Assurance Netherlands / Germany
- Robert Bosch GmbH, Germany
- Fresenius Medical Care Deutschland GmbH, Germany
- Pirelli Tyres GmbH, Germany
- Ruhrkohle AG, Germany
- TIA GmbH (Triumph-Adler Group, Inc.), Germany
- Sage KHK Software Frankfurt, Germany
- VDR - Union of German Pension Assurances, Germany
- National Health Insurance Union, Cologne, Germany
- Health Insurance Unions, Bremen and Trier, Germany
- Dortmunder Assurance Management GmbH, Germany
- The GEA Wiegand Trust, Germany
- Optical Works, Rodenstock, Germany
- Klicksoft AG ("Klicktel " Telephone Book CD's), Germany
- Bally Wulff, Germany
- Universal Postal Union (UN Headquarter), Switzerland
- Bally Shoefactory, Switzerland
- Grundfos Denmark und Grundfos Germany
- B.O.S. - Better Online Solutions, Israel
- CEGEDIM S.A., France
- La Sept Arte (the Television Channel), France
|
Customer's Responses
What our customers think about VPE
|
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"I like what I see!! I sent back Seagate Crystal Reports when I found your
product."
Eric Oliver, Kedco Enterprises Inc., Conroe, Texas, USA
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"I am a new user of your product and I must say that it was the easiest to
implement of any toolkit I have ever purchased. In addition, everything that I have used
actually works. It is amazing to me how many toolkits out there don't do what they are
supposed to do and probably never will.
My company develops software for
distribution to businesses that count on us to provide mission critical applications. I
have always been reluctant to use third party products that I have not much experience
with. But your product is one that I have already recommended to other developers. Keep up
the good work!"
Larry Stefan, Data Functions, Texas City, Texas
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"We have
searched the market, and have found no other print engine with your capabilities... I was
concerned about buying from a European company, because of possible language problems
and/or lack of support. Your quick email responses have laid that concern to rest. Feel
free to use Monarch Bay as a US reference."
Ron Phillips, Monarch Bay Software, Inc.
("HelpTrac™" application), Houston, Texas
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"Thank you very much for designing this
product."
David Sworder, Jack Carl Futures, San Diego, California
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"I was really surprised to discover such a good reporting tool, after years
of battles with Crystal Reports PRO."
Giovanni Buommino (Diploma-Engineer), Engineering Office for Project
Management and Software-Development, Dreieich, Germany
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"I just want to say thank you for the excellent support you have been
providing. Your prompt and helpful answers are a welcome change from the other third-party
control vendors I have dealt with."
Andrew K. Martin, Senior Developer, Automated Business Development,
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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"Its easiness and printing capabilities are
spectacular."
G. Thibon, Independent Consultant and Developer,
France
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"Just by using the demo version of VPE for a
short time, I can say this is one of the best values in third party programming tools that
I have seen! Printing bitmaps was getting to be a 'black hole' for me so VPE offered me a
very elegant solution."
Lee Baker, Developer, Fort Bragg, California
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"What a brilliant piece of software VPE is turning out to be. I've only got
the demo so far, but will be making my company buy a copy very soon."
Mark Keogh, ShipNet, UK
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"The OCX worked beautifully with my application written in Progress version
8.2. This piece of software saved me weeks of development work. I called the people at
Progress technical support about the existence of your OCX so they could log it in their
knowledge base."
Douglas Hecht, Baxter Healthcare Corporation, Largo, Florida (USA)
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"I am amazed by you guys! Yours is the only component I have ever used that
is a step ahead of me.
Your product has enabled my to provide some fantastic
functionality. I develop middle-tier components which are used by other developers in the
company for our applications. My initial purpose in purchasing VPE was to create a
reporting engine that would allow the development team to develop reports very quickly. I
recently expanded that to use PRS files [ed. VPE Printer Setup Files] to allow complex
routing of print jobs from a central administration point.
Currently I am working on a document workflow system which uses VPE Document files
as its document format. It is perfect, because I can use a swap file then save that to a
blob in the database and I have device-independent output that can move through the
company as needed. This has enabled me to develop very powerful technology for my company
with surprisingly little effort. It has allowed me to focus on the business solutions
without spending alot of time on the printing solution."
Andrew Martin, Senior Developer, Automated Business Development
Corp., Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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"Just purchased your product for report generation by a real-time
instrumentation system. I needed to automatically generate reports on the fly
from a Win95 C++ program to the default printer. Originally purchased Seagate
Crystal Reports, after much investigation, I still do not know if it will do what
I wanted to do. Gave it to our person who generates reports from data bases. ...
I am very pleased. Your product is very straightforward, simple to use, but gives me
enough power to do the things that I need to do. The 0.1mm scaling makes life so easy.
Last summer, just to have some output, I wrote a Windows C routine based on one of the
Microsoft Windows books to print the data. ... I spent much more time on the little that I
got out of that routine than I spent on your library. I have even incorporated scalable
histograms in the report based on your line drawing functions.
Just wanted to comment on how pleased I am with your product. ... Your product is about
the only part of the project that has not proven to be "Interesting". Thanks for
the help by giving me a good product."
Gary Coker, Principal Engineer, RG Research, Inc.
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"Virtual Print Engine was simple to implement yet provided the Printer
Control and Power that we could not find in any other Software Program available on the
market. VPE has allowed us to expand our market and deliver print capabilities that our
customers have been asking for. Thank you for such a great product as it has met every
Item of our "Wish List" for such a utility. Keep up the good work."
Dan Climent, President, SoftPoint Systems Inc., Fremont, California,
USA
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"I'm finding it to be an amazing product and I'm very impressed with what
I've been able to do so far. I've worked with Visual Basic for many years, and have seen
many add-on products from many third-party companies. Let me tell you that VPE is one of
the very very best and most useful products I have ever seen. I'm very impressed,
especially with it's tremendously fast processing... Thanks again for creating a truly
helpful and well thought-out product."
Mike Folden, Programmer Analyst, MGM GmbH, Grünstadt, Deutschland
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"I have been constantly fighting with the limitations of Seagate Crystal
Reports to get the reports that I want. Now, with VPE, I'm glad to have found a reporting
tool that offers all the freedom I need. I have not yet come across a problem that VPE
couldn't handle! Thanks for your help!"
Mark Irwin, Developer, Canada Life Assurance Company, Regina,
Saskatchewan, Canada
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"Let me just stop and take a moment to praise you for your great product.
There aren't that many ActiveX controls out there that are as stable and predictable as
yours. Job well done! I think we must get the word out to the FoxPro developers (amongst
others), that there is a viable alternative to FoxPro's feeble attempt of a report
writer."
Peter Marlborough, Progressive Business Solutions, Inc., London,
Ontario, Canada
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"You have a fantastic product! I am extremely pleased with what you have
accomplished with it."
Bryan Beswick, IS Manager, Diagnostic Cytology Laboratories, Inc.
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"Thanks for providing such a high-quality tool that makes work for us grunt
programmers easier."
Marty Cantwell, Custom Softworks, Owner / Programmer,
Independence, Missouri, USA
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"Your VPE DLL is great !!! Thanks again! It
is just what the doctor ordered, and will save me many hours of work."
R. Bennett, Senior Software Engineer, Vodavi
Communications Inc., Scottsdale, Arizona
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"I have
been looking for a software like VPE for about 6 months. I just downloaded it last night
and it is really fantastic."
Marcos Bauer, Developer, Sao Paulo, Brazil
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"I am very pleased with your product, I wish
that there were more quality tools such as yours available."
Scott Haberstroh, STC, Columbus, Indiana
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"Excellent service!! You guys are great."
Tom Bergman, SilverPlatter Information Inc., Boston, USA
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"I still want to say that VPE is a very great utility. We've
been searching for a utility for quite some time, we've been evaluating some of them and
the power and ease-of-use of VPE really impressed. Keep up the good work."
Patrick Elsen, R&D Engineer, Fidro
Informatica N.V., Heusden, Belgium
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"THANK YOU for such an excellent product - whoever's behind the programming
of IDEAL Software's Virtual Print Engine does a meticulous job and knows how to make
everything work - very uncommon in this industry!"
Russ Roy, Construction Computer Systems, Roseville, CA, USA
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"We are using Crystal report from version 5..6..7..8..8.5
In one
hour of work we produced the best report we have ever seen using VPE, and we produce
incredible complex reports. We have the control over all parameters and the PRECISION:
FANTASTIC!!
With Crystal we have a lot (LOT ^ 10) of problems:
-There is no chance to produce a cascaded-report.
-It doesn't print on our special printer.
-The size of the binaries is horrible.
I could continue for hours. Crystal is a good product but the problems are too big when
going into details."
Antonio Iannuzzi, Analist Group Srl, Mercogliano, Italy
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We picked VPE as our print library of choice. Our selection criteria was:
- Flexible page layout, including text, lines and graphics.
- Fast and efficient
- Integrated barcode capability
- Print Preview capability
- Integrated print to file capability
Working with VPE and your company over the years, I am extremely glad that we did
chose you as our print capability vendor!
Chuck Logan, Hart Intercivic, Inc., Lafayette, Colorado, USA
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"VPE is a terrific product...and the service is excellent!!!!"
Charles W. Leggette, Actuarial Management Services, Inc., Dallas,
Texas, USA
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"Your product is amazing! Keep up the good work."
Daniel Kaminski, OnLine LIMS, Callander, Ontario, Canada
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"It is an EXCELLENT work."
R. Ritchie, Technical Director, D-BIT Systems (Pty)
Ltd., Johannesburg, South Africa
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| and
many more ... |
Top
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