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Technical Press

SDT - Software Development Techniques, Issue 2 / 2002

"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."


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"


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."


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."


BasicPro, 5 / 99, Germany

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 e-Mail 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."


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."

bullet Customer's Responses

"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., Houston, Texas, USA

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