Configuring Letterhead: Difference between revisions

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=== Primary Letterhead Requirments ===
=== Older method using HEAD.HTM ===
 
Letterhead using Maintenance mode, F5, DEFINITIONS [[Special:PermanentLink/6482]]
 
=== Primary Letterhead Requirements ===


While setting up the letterhead for any company, NEOSYS requires the following:
While setting up the letterhead for any company, NEOSYS requires the following:
#Exact company name to appear on invoices etc
#Exact company name to appear on invoices etc
#Company logo  
#Company logo  
#Address for letterhead  
#Address for letterhead
 
Image Format{{Letterhead Logo Format}}<br>
 
=== General principles to get excellent letterheads ===
 
Set the letterhead aesthetically pleasing by following the below points:
 
*DONT just cut and paste whatever you have been given with no care and attention to it looking nice.
*DO balance up the lines in some clever way and avoid stretching across the whole page as far as possible
*DO JOIN multiple lines onto one line or SPLIT lines to make full use of the vertical space that the logo height reserves in the letterhead
*DO something nice even if you see other cases and examples done badly
*DONT copy existing letterheads if they dont follow the above principles (unless it is known that the client specifically wants it like that)
 
=== Dynamic letterhead ===
 
NEOSYS letterhead is not designed for a specific page size or layout. It has to be highly adaptable to work on many different device types and dimensions, for example browser screen, email screen, printer landscape, printer portrait.
 
NEOSYS media invoices use the "date list" mode by default (instead of "date grid" mode as for schedule printouts) and therefore can fit in portrait mode but, since media schedules and plans usually must be printed in landscape mode, it is common to print media invoices in landscape mode too.


=== Location of images for letterhead ===
=== Using Preprinted Letterhead ===


==== Placing letterhead images in the local data folder ====
NEOSYS output documents have an option to OMIT letterhead in order to be suitable for printing on paper that has pre-printed letterhead on it.


If users don't have access to the world wide web from their computers then the put images is in the data\xyz folder (where xyz is the database code) and then in the HEAD.HTM file you can put src="http://192.168.0.1/neosys/data/xyz/imagename.jpg". (replace the IP 192.168.0.1 with the real IP and xyz with the dataset name). Do not use just the file name because if a document with such a link goes out over the network then the recipients email program recognizes the mail as a phishing mail and might even block it.
Usually the user will have to configure a large printer top margin in such a case to ensure that NEOSYS will not start overprinting the pre-printed letterhead. This is because there is currently no option in NEOSYS to configure the printer top margin.


==== Placing letterhead images on neosys.com ====
=== Setting up letterhead in Company File ===


Placing letterhead images on neosys.com means that documents properly show the logo regardless of where they are sent or used AS LONG AS there is access to the web.
Basic concepts:


1) Using FTP etc., upload the image file to neosys.com in TWO places.
*A letterhead consists of 1, 2, 3 or more "cells" of equal width, spread from left to right.
httpdocs/img
httpsdocs/img


2) In the letterhead configuration file, prefix the image file name with //www.neosys.com/img/
*Each cell may contain an image, text, or both.


For example:
*The alignment left, center or right, and font-size of each cell can be configured.


<IMG SRC="//www.neosys.com/img/medialin.jpg" ALT="MediaLine">
*Images, e.g. logos, can be uploaded. Text, e.g. addresses, can be entered.
*Text may contain HTML tags to allow for customisation eg bold or anything else that you can imagine.


Note: Do NOT start the src with http: to avoid browser questions when accessing neosys using https. Neither prefix it with https to avoid browser questions when using http.
Uses DRY principle - DONT REPEAT YOURSELF - to keep configuration clear, ease maintenance and reduce errors. Any future changes to logos and addresses will  be automatically replicated everywhere necessary.


=== Naming logo files ===
*Logos and addresses can be shared between companies.
*Text may contain various substitution codes like %COMPANY_NAME%, %TAX_REG_NO% etc.


#It is recommended that logo file names include useful info like company name and not useless info like “logo”.
=== Using substitution macros in letterhead text ===
#The objective is that we can look at a directory of files and take a reasonable guess of what each file contains.
#We should be able to keep a lot of logo files in one directory without risk of clashing.


For example: Version 2 of the right hand side logo of company Abracadabra LLC the file name could be ABRA2R.jpg.
To avoid having to make separate letterhead per company in multi-company databases, various "macros" can be inserted into letterhead text.


=== Letterhead Logo Format ===
The macros are replaced with the corresponding values from the Company File at the time of document or report creation.
#All letterhead logo files names should in simple “8.3” forma, i.e.
#*MAX EIGHT CHARACTERS plus extension like “.jpg” or “.gif” etc
#*NO PUNCTUATION, SPECIAL CHARACTERS OR SPACES <br>Otherwise the NEOSYS restore process will corrupt the filename into something like LOGO_M~1.JPG and the logos will not appear on documents.
#File Format
#* *.jpg or *.gif file
#* About 100 pixels high and proportionally wide.
#* Images must be resized intelligently. Merely editing the image is unacceptable as it affect quality of text in the logo and graphic itself. (See [[Can_I_resize_images_to_use_in_letterhead_for_NEOSYS_documents%3F|Why NOT to resize images for letterheads?]])
#Naming Convention
#*For safety, stick to alphanumeric characters i.e. a-z, A-Z and 0-9 and underscore _
#*It is recommended that you use all upper case or all lower case letters for simplicity but this is not critical.
#*Any lower-case letters will be converted to upper-case on restore however this does not cause a problem.


=== Customising the letterhead for all printed documents ===
NEOSYS Support team MUST always put Tax Reg No/Company Name/Company Reg No in the Company file and NOT directly into HEAD.HTM, as it is unnecessary repetitive work and prone to errors if and when changes are required to be made.


In Maintenance mode, press F5 and the following command:
*%COMPANY_NAME% from the Company File
*%COMPANY_REG_NO% from the Company File
*%TAX_REG_NO% from the Company File
*%URL% from System Configuration File
*%DATAURL% from System Configuration File. Where NEOSYS documents and reports are created.
*%DATABASECODE% Up to eight characters. Same as login screen.


ED DEFINITIONS HEAD.HTM
*more options can be added on request


Then edit it as how you would do to a HTML file.
==== Example 1: Logo on left, address on right ====


Commands:
[[file:lettereg1.png]]


Ctrl + N New Line
==== Example 2: Using the same image and text as another company ====
Ctrl + D Delete line
F9         Save
Alt + D        Delete the document


==== Example 1 ====
[[file:letterheadeg2.png]]


Logo top left. Address top right.
==== Example 3 - Full Manual letterhead ====
 
Completely manual design of letterhead can be done in a single row/cell by placing the HTML code as Text.
 
[[file:letterheadold.png]]
 
==== Example 4 up a "banner-style" letterhead ====
 
Use a three cell html table to store left, center and right images.
 
Make normally sized separate images for the left and right sides.
 
Make a single color image that can be resized on the fly by html to fill in the gap.


<pre>
<pre>
<TABLE width=100%>
<table width=100% cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 >
  <tr>
  <tr>
   <td align=left>
 
   <img src=http://192.168.0.1/neosys/data/xyz/logo.jpg></img>
   <td align=left width=1%>
   <img src=EXAMPL.PNG />
   </td>
   </td>
   <td align=right>
 
   <table style=font-size:80%>
   <td>
    <tr>
   <img src=EXAMPC.PNG width="100%" height="100" />
      <td align=left>
      www.websitename.com<br>
      P.O. Box 493, Dubai, U.A.E.<br>
      Tel: +971 4 2222222 <br>
      Fax: +971 4 2222223
    </td>
    </tr>
  </table>
   </td>
   </td>
  <td align=right width=1%>
  <img src=EXAMPR.PNG />
  </td>
  </tr>
  </tr>
</table>
</table>
</pre>
</pre>


==== Example 2 ====
=== Converting Old style letterhead ===
 
Logo top center.
 
<pre>
<p align=center><img src=http://192.168.0.1/neosys/data/xyz/imagefilename.jpg></img></p>
</pre>
 
==== Checking what file names are actually used for logos ====
#Get the document on screen
#Right click the image you want to check
#Choose Properties
#Look at “Address (URL)”. The last bit is the file name.


=== Customising the letterhead for transmission certificates ===
Old style letterhead will automatically appear like full manual letterhead.


“Transmission certificate” is an option on the Schedule Printout that formats the schedule printout slightly differently so that it can be used as a transmission certificate i.e. a formal document suitable for certifying that advertising has appeared correctly.
It can very easily be converted manually to the new format, as and when convenient, by extracting the company name, address, font size etc from the html tags and placing them in new style letterhead configuration.


The letterhead of a transmission certificate can customised per media vehicle so that the agency can issue them on behalf of the media.
Existing letterhead logos should be downloaded and re-uploaded in the new configuration style.


For example we have a schedule for a media vehicle with vehicle code “XXYY”. Only the first vehicle on the schedule is used to determine which custom letterhead is used, if any.
Where-ever possible, old hard-coded letterhead text like company name, and company and tax registration numbers MUST be replaced with %% macros to ease future maintenance.


ED DEFINITIONS XXYY_HEAD.HTM
Where-ever possible, for companies that share address blocks, the address MUST NOT be entered multiple times. Address blocks MUST only be entered on one main company to ease future maintenance.


For general information about creating letterheads, see the documentation for creating standard letterhead.
Where-ever possible, logos that are shared between companies MUST NOT be uploaded more than once. Logos MUST only be uploaded on one main company to ease future maintenance.


=== Positioning address at bottom of page ===
Conversion of multi-company databases requires conversion of each company individually. Converting one company, does not automatically convert them all. Any unconverted companies will remain as they were.


This unfortunately cannot be done in NEOSYS due to lack of facility in HTML web pages or at least lack of knowledge of how to do it at the moment.
=== Location and URL of uploaded letterhead images ===


Many NEOSYS clients print their invoices on pre-printed letterhead stationary in order to get precise branding and the formality of real letterhead.
The uploaded images are placed in NEOSYS web server /images/ folder with names like logo_XXX_9.jpg where XXX is the company code, and 9 is the letterhead column number.


One can set printer margin to adjust the invoice text on a pre-printed letterhead.
In the HTML document the images are referred to by the FULL URL to the NEOSYS web server


=== Deciding to use portrait or landscape pre-printed letterhead ===
The URL is obtained from the first NEOSYS login URL found in the Configuration File


NEOSYS media invoices use the "date list" mode by default (instead of "date grid" mode as for schedule printouts) and therefore can fit in portrait mode but, since media schedules and plans usually must be printed in landscape mode, it is common to print media invoices in landscape mode too.
<img src="https://test.hosts.neosys.com:4430/images/DEVDTEST/UPLOAD/COMPANIES/logo_X_1.jpg" />


=== Location of HTML files ===
FULL URL is used because, for NEOSYS documents to be converted with their images into other formats like OFFICE/PDF etc, the program doing the conversion must be able to retrieve the image using the URL contained in the HTML.


All html documents output by NEOSYS are put in the data\xyz folder (where xyz is the database code) and deleted automatically after about one hour)
=== Not seeing images if using alternative NEOSYS login URLs ===


=== Searching for earlier created letterheads ===
Anybody using secondary NEOSYS login URLs will NOT be able to see uploaded letterhead logos in their documents.


You can search for all earlier created letterheads in the maintenance mode. This is useful when you have several companies and want to see which companies have been configured with letterheads.
=== Using other images ===


In maintenance mode, press F5
Since any img tag can be placed in the text of letterhead, any image can be included in letterhead configuration.


FIND DEFINITIONS HEAD.HTM
Such images could be placed on a public web site and the FULL url (omitting http: and https:) placed in the letterhead.


=== Changing the letterhead for all printed documents of a particular division/company ===
Note: Do NOT start the src with http: or https: to avoid browser questions when accessing neosys using https/http


ED DEFINITIONS X_HEAD.HTM
=== Checking what file names are actually used for logos ===
#Get the document on screen
(where X is the company code followed by an underscore)
#Right click the image you want to check
#Choose Properties
#Look at “Address (URL)”. The last bit is the file name.


=== Copying letterheads ===
=== Location of NEOSYS HTML files ===


We can copy letterheads by using the following command:
All html documents output by NEOSYS are put in the data\xxxxxxxx folder where xxxxxxxx is the database code


COPY DEFINITIONS X_HEAD.HTM TO: (DEFINITIONS Y_HEAD.HTM)
They are deleted automatically after about one hour


(where X is the division whose letterhead you want to copy into letterhead for division Y) 
=== Customising the letterhead for transmission certificates ===


“Transmission certificate” is an option on the Schedule Printout that formats the schedule printout slightly differently so that it can be used as a transmission certificate i.e. a formal document suitable for certifying that advertising has appeared correctly.


=== Multiple letterheads in single user version of NEOSYS ===
See [http://userwiki.neosys.com/index.php/Schedule_Printout#Certificate Certificate option in Schedule printout]


Multiple letterheads are provided by using different company codes.
The letterhead of a transmission certificate can customised per media vehicle so that the agency can issue them on behalf of the media.


Normally NEOSYS does not provide provide multicompany system for single user price so if the client is only doing the occasional document in other company then perhaps they can edit the document to remove/change the letter head. Editing should be easy enough in Word from the Edit button in Internet Explorer tool bar although after editing they probably have to save it somewhere (anywhere really) in order to print/email it.
Media vehicle logo per vehicle can be uploaded on the Vehicle file.


If they are just emailing documents then they can edit the email before sending it.
=== Positioning address at bottom of page ===


Although it is often not practical, another possible way, is to make the letterhead blank (put just &nbsp;) and they could print all documents on real letterhead depending on which company they want. This would still leave the main company name just above the body of the document though.
This unfortunately cannot be done in NEOSYS due to lack of facility in HTML web pages or at least lack of knowledge of how to do it at the moment.
 
There isnt a way at the moment in NEOSYS for the user to control if the letterhead is printed or not.


Note that accounting documents may have a different letterhead from all other documents and the accounting letterhead is often set to blank so that all accounting documents (eg invoices and statements) are printed on real letterheaded stationary for stronger impact and formality.
Some NEOSYS clients print their invoices on pre-printed letterhead stationary in order to get precise branding and the formality of real letterhead.

Latest revision as of 13:35, 18 April 2018

Older method using HEAD.HTM

Letterhead using Maintenance mode, F5, DEFINITIONS Special:PermanentLink/6482

Primary Letterhead Requirements

While setting up the letterhead for any company, NEOSYS requires the following:

  1. Exact company name to appear on invoices etc
  2. Company logo
  3. Address for letterhead
Image Format
     - Must be a *.JPG or *.GIF or *.PNG file 
     - Must be about 100 pixels high and proportionally wide with NO MARGINS or WHITE SPACES inside the file.
    ** LOGO WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED IF IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THE ABOVE FORMAT **
     - A correctly sized image MUST be created from the ORIGINAL graphic design file (eg. Photoshop PSD).
   Crude resizing of image files using image editing programs is unacceptable. This is because random
   re-pixelation of the edges and (especially) the text from an already pixelated image leads to an
   unacceptable loss of quality. 
  (Click here to see why NOT to resize images for letterheads: http://userwiki.neosys.com/index.php/General_FAQ#Is_it_okay_to_resize_images_for_use_in_letterhead_for_NEOSYS_documents.3F )

General principles to get excellent letterheads

Set the letterhead aesthetically pleasing by following the below points:

  • DONT just cut and paste whatever you have been given with no care and attention to it looking nice.
  • DO balance up the lines in some clever way and avoid stretching across the whole page as far as possible
  • DO JOIN multiple lines onto one line or SPLIT lines to make full use of the vertical space that the logo height reserves in the letterhead
  • DO something nice even if you see other cases and examples done badly
  • DONT copy existing letterheads if they dont follow the above principles (unless it is known that the client specifically wants it like that)

Dynamic letterhead

NEOSYS letterhead is not designed for a specific page size or layout. It has to be highly adaptable to work on many different device types and dimensions, for example browser screen, email screen, printer landscape, printer portrait.

NEOSYS media invoices use the "date list" mode by default (instead of "date grid" mode as for schedule printouts) and therefore can fit in portrait mode but, since media schedules and plans usually must be printed in landscape mode, it is common to print media invoices in landscape mode too.

Using Preprinted Letterhead

NEOSYS output documents have an option to OMIT letterhead in order to be suitable for printing on paper that has pre-printed letterhead on it.

Usually the user will have to configure a large printer top margin in such a case to ensure that NEOSYS will not start overprinting the pre-printed letterhead. This is because there is currently no option in NEOSYS to configure the printer top margin.

Setting up letterhead in Company File

Basic concepts:

  • A letterhead consists of 1, 2, 3 or more "cells" of equal width, spread from left to right.
  • Each cell may contain an image, text, or both.
  • The alignment left, center or right, and font-size of each cell can be configured.
  • Images, e.g. logos, can be uploaded. Text, e.g. addresses, can be entered.
  • Text may contain HTML tags to allow for customisation eg bold or anything else that you can imagine.

Uses DRY principle - DONT REPEAT YOURSELF - to keep configuration clear, ease maintenance and reduce errors. Any future changes to logos and addresses will be automatically replicated everywhere necessary.

  • Logos and addresses can be shared between companies.
  • Text may contain various substitution codes like %COMPANY_NAME%, %TAX_REG_NO% etc.

Using substitution macros in letterhead text

To avoid having to make separate letterhead per company in multi-company databases, various "macros" can be inserted into letterhead text.

The macros are replaced with the corresponding values from the Company File at the time of document or report creation.

NEOSYS Support team MUST always put Tax Reg No/Company Name/Company Reg No in the Company file and NOT directly into HEAD.HTM, as it is unnecessary repetitive work and prone to errors if and when changes are required to be made.

  • %COMPANY_NAME% from the Company File
  • %COMPANY_REG_NO% from the Company File
  • %TAX_REG_NO% from the Company File
  • %URL% from System Configuration File
  • %DATAURL% from System Configuration File. Where NEOSYS documents and reports are created.
  • %DATABASECODE% Up to eight characters. Same as login screen.
  • more options can be added on request

Example 1: Logo on left, address on right

Lettereg1.png

Example 2: Using the same image and text as another company

Letterheadeg2.png

Example 3 - Full Manual letterhead

Completely manual design of letterhead can be done in a single row/cell by placing the HTML code as Text.

Letterheadold.png

Example 4 up a "banner-style" letterhead

Use a three cell html table to store left, center and right images.

Make normally sized separate images for the left and right sides.

Make a single color image that can be resized on the fly by html to fill in the gap. 

<table width=100% cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 >
 <tr>

  <td align=left width=1%>
   <img src=EXAMPL.PNG />
  </td>

  <td>
   <img src=EXAMPC.PNG width="100%" height="100" />
  </td>

  <td align=right width=1%>
   <img src=EXAMPR.PNG />
  </td>

 </tr>
</table>

Converting Old style letterhead

Old style letterhead will automatically appear like full manual letterhead.

It can very easily be converted manually to the new format, as and when convenient, by extracting the company name, address, font size etc from the html tags and placing them in new style letterhead configuration.

Existing letterhead logos should be downloaded and re-uploaded in the new configuration style.

Where-ever possible, old hard-coded letterhead text like company name, and company and tax registration numbers MUST be replaced with %% macros to ease future maintenance.

Where-ever possible, for companies that share address blocks, the address MUST NOT be entered multiple times. Address blocks MUST only be entered on one main company to ease future maintenance.

Where-ever possible, logos that are shared between companies MUST NOT be uploaded more than once. Logos MUST only be uploaded on one main company to ease future maintenance.

Conversion of multi-company databases requires conversion of each company individually. Converting one company, does not automatically convert them all. Any unconverted companies will remain as they were.

Location and URL of uploaded letterhead images

The uploaded images are placed in NEOSYS web server /images/ folder with names like logo_XXX_9.jpg where XXX is the company code, and 9 is the letterhead column number.

In the HTML document the images are referred to by the FULL URL to the NEOSYS web server

The URL is obtained from the first NEOSYS login URL found in the Configuration File 

<img src="https://test.hosts.neosys.com:4430/images/DEVDTEST/UPLOAD/COMPANIES/logo_X_1.jpg" />

FULL URL is used because, for NEOSYS documents to be converted with their images into other formats like OFFICE/PDF etc, the program doing the conversion must be able to retrieve the image using the URL contained in the HTML.

Not seeing images if using alternative NEOSYS login URLs

Anybody using secondary NEOSYS login URLs will NOT be able to see uploaded letterhead logos in their documents.

Using other images

Since any img tag can be placed in the text of letterhead, any image can be included in letterhead configuration.

Such images could be placed on a public web site and the FULL url (omitting http: and https:) placed in the letterhead.

Note: Do NOT start the src with http: or https: to avoid browser questions when accessing neosys using https/http

Checking what file names are actually used for logos

  1. Get the document on screen
  2. Right click the image you want to check
  3. Choose Properties
  4. Look at “Address (URL)”. The last bit is the file name.

Location of NEOSYS HTML files

All html documents output by NEOSYS are put in the data\xxxxxxxx folder where xxxxxxxx is the database code

They are deleted automatically after about one hour

Customising the letterhead for transmission certificates

“Transmission certificate” is an option on the Schedule Printout that formats the schedule printout slightly differently so that it can be used as a transmission certificate i.e. a formal document suitable for certifying that advertising has appeared correctly.

See Certificate option in Schedule printout

The letterhead of a transmission certificate can customised per media vehicle so that the agency can issue them on behalf of the media.

Media vehicle logo per vehicle can be uploaded on the Vehicle file.

Positioning address at bottom of page

This unfortunately cannot be done in NEOSYS due to lack of facility in HTML web pages or at least lack of knowledge of how to do it at the moment.

Some NEOSYS clients print their invoices on pre-printed letterhead stationary in order to get precise branding and the formality of real letterhead.

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