What is FLIP2PDF?

FLIP2PDF is an application that converts disparate files and web content into standard PDF documents. With FLIP2PDF you can create uniform output content, allowing you to deliver a consistent customer experience.

FLIP2PDF is available for Linux and Windows 64-bit platforms, and you can install the software on local hardware or  on a cloud computing server to configure and run automated or ad-hoc conversion requests using your command line interface. You can also make conversion requests through FLIP2PDF’s API layer. FLIP2PDF supports conversion to PDF from the following file and content types:

• HTML files and web pages
• PostScript and Encapsulated PostScript
• Word documents, doc and docx
• Excel spreadsheets, xls and xlsx
• PowerPoint documents, ppt and pptx
• TIFF, JPEG, BMP, and PNG graphic files

What you get when you buy FLIP2PDF

• An EXE installation file for Windows 64 or BSX for Linux 64
• A command line utility for converting documents into PDF files
• A C language API
• An API sample program you can experiment with out of the box or use as a template for your own development
• Online access to user documentation
• Technical support from our team of digital document specialists and professionals.  You can contact your Datalogics Support representative directly by electronic mail or visit our support site for this product.
• Regular software updates

NOTE: Make sure that any HTML or JavaScript files you attempt to process using FLIP2PDF come from a 
reliable source, or are scanned to make sure that they do not harbor any viruses or malware.

Some notes on installing and running FLIP2PDF

If you purchase the Linux version of the product, please make sure that you install the following before you install FLIP2PDF:

• the Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
• the libcanberra-gtk-module library
• the libXinerama library

To run FLIP2PDF on Linux, use Redhat Enterprise Linux 7/CentOS 7.

FLIP2PDF and LibreOffice

Note that for Windows systems, FLIP2PDF and LibreOffice cannot be installed and running separately on the same server platform. The Windows versions of these two products are not compatible. This does not apply to Linux systems. To work properly, LibreOffice needs to be embedded as part of the FLIP2PDF installation instead.

Make sure, therefore, that you install FLIP2PDF on a server or on a Virtual Machine (VM) where LibreOffice is not already running.

If you decide to install FLIP2PDF on a server where LibreOffice is already running, you will need to uninstall LibreOffice first, and remove UNO_PATH from the environment variables from either Windows or Linux. In that event you will also need to preserve any custom templates or settings that you created for LibreOffice.

When you install FLIP2PDF, our software will install a version of LibreOffice as part of the broader installation process. At the beginning of the installation process, if the installer detects a copy of LibreOffice on the same system, you will be prompted to remove LibreOffice, and then the installation process will end with no changes being applied to your system.

Environment Variables

To install FLIP2PDF run the executable for Windows (such as setup_FLIP2PDF_Pro_Win64_1.3.0.exe) or the self-extracting script file for Linux (such as setup_FLIP2PDF_Pro_Linux64_1.3.0.bsx).

For either platform, when you install the software the executable identifies the product as Pro or Premium, and the version number of the release.

The Windows installation program for FLIP2PDF adds the location of the FLIP2PDF executable to the PATH in the Windows Environment Variables, so you can run “flip2pdf.exe” from anywhere.  For Linux, if you want to run the executable from anywhere, you need to manually add the location of the FLIP2PDF executable to the PATH variable.

The License and the Activation Key

When you first evaluate or purchase FLIP2PDF, you will receive an activation key, and you will be prompted to enter this key when you install the software. In response the system generates a license file for you (flip2pdf_pro.lic or flip2pdf_premium.lic) and stores it in the software installation directory.

If you later receive a new activation key for FLIP2PDF, you will need to enter it as you did your original activation key when you first installed the product. Delete the license file from the installation directory and then run the executable, flip2pdf.exe or flip2pdf.bsx. You will be prompted to enter the activation key. Type or paste the key value as you did before. The system will create a new license file for you, and you can continue to use the product.

Note that if you don’t enter the activation key value when you first install the product, or enter it incorrectly, you will be prompted to enter the value again the next time you run FLIP2PDF. But if you enter the key later, the system will create the license file in the working directory where FLIP2PDF.exe is run. In that event you will need to move the license file from the working directory to the installation directory.

Working with Fonts

By default FLIP2PDF automatically embeds in output PDF documents any fonts used to create those documents. This is considered a best practice for creating PDF files. With the fonts embedded in a PDF file, that file will always look the same wherever it is opened, because the viewer tool (such as Adobe Reader) does not need to look for a font on the local machine. But to generate the PDF document with the embedded font using FLIP2PDF, the software must be able to find it.

Any font used in a PDF document generated by FLIP2PDF must be installed on the machine running FLIP2PDF. Otherwise FLIP2PDF will look for an alternate font file that can be applied to the PDF document as a substitute. If you are using a standard font, like Times New Roman in English, the font is probably on the machine already, installed with the Windows operating system or with Microsoft Office. But you may need to manually install a specialized font on the machine, such as a font with Arabic, Mandarin, or Korean characters, if you seek to use FLIP2PDF to create a PDF document based on a source file using those characters.

Keep in mind that you might create a Word document with Arabic characters on one machine and then transfer that file to another for processing with FLIP2PDF. For example, you might edit a document with Arabic characters in Word and then copy it to a directory on a network server, so that it can be included in an automatic overnight batch process to convert the files in that directory to PDF documents using FLIP2PDF. If that Arabic font is not installed on the server running FLIP2PDF, the Arabic characters will not appear in the PDF output document.

It is also possible to embed a specialized font in a Microsoft Office source document, such as a Word file. Then FLIP2PDF can find the font in the source file itself, rather than on the machine.