TARGET Sales Management System - Application Notes

Fax images

The TARGET system provides for faxing directly from the system using the TCOMM/FAX software provided with your system. One of the features of this software is the ability to use an image as letterhead; your TARGET system should already be set up to use your standard letterhead as the default image.

You may also make special fax images for promotional or other purposes. Since the image is graphical, it may contain special fonts, pictures, or almost anything you can make on your Windows computer. The reproduction quality is limited by the resolution of the faxing standards in general and the receiving fax machine in particular. Drawings and character fonts generally reproduce well; pictures normally do not. As always, we suggest faxing yourself the image as a test prior to using it in production.

Making the image

You may make the fax image on your Windows computer using any program capable of supporting the required output format. At HSI, we use PaintShop Pro from JASC Software, available for under $80 at stores like Staples. It is even possible to use the standard Paint program that comes with Windows, but we don't recommend it. The program you use must be capable of producing a monochrome bitmap (BMP) file.

First, create an empty monochrome bitmap with pixel dimensions of 864 pixels wide by 1056 pixels high. These dimensions are very important; if the size is not exactly correct the image will not work. Also, be sure to select monochrome (one-bit) mode; color or grayscale will not work. If you wish to start with your existing letterhead, ask us to send you a copy of it in a form suitable for this use.

Using whatever functions are available in your program, insert text, pictures, or whatever into the bitmap. When you have finished, save it to your Windows hard disk. We strongly suggest using a filename that is not longer than eight characters. You should use Windows Explorer to check that the file size is exactly 114,110 bytes. If the file size is different, there is something wrong.

Installing the image

Log on to your TARGET system using the special username of SYSTEM and your special system password. Then use the TWS Session, Transfer mechanism to move the .bmp file to the THEOS machine. When you have done this, type the following commands, replacing the "sample" in each line by the name you gave your image; the parentheses are part of the command you should type.

tcommbmp sample
change tcomm.tcbmp.sample (share nr)
bye
The final command "bye" will log you off the TARGET system. You should then log back on as yourself. Now we need to set up the correspondence between your image name and the TARGET image code you will be using.

Decide which image code you will be using; most likely you will be using one of the "wild card" image codes FXLHW1 through FXLHW9. Go to Back Office, System Controls, Fax Image Control Maintenance and enter the control code you just selected. Fill in the image file name (without the .bmp). If you are putting text from the TARGET system onto the image, you may need to experiment with the top and bottom margins; if so, these are specified in print lines which are roughly 1/6 inch each.

Using the image

You may fax using the image just by specifying the image code you selected above (eg; FXLHW1) when you fax. If the image contains everything you want to say, send it using an empty word processing document. We suggest creating an empty document called "BLANK" for this purpose. If you want to merge in the contact name or other company information, see the application note on bulk marketing for details on how to do this.

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