Has there been a change in how PDF files are generated?

[Viktor]

I’ve been using a few workflows in my app to generate PDF files which are then printed out automatically. However, from the 12th February and forward, the PDF files have not been able to print, and I’ve noticed a small change in the PDF file itself. Generally the PDF just contains a barcode which is generated from a webservice (Free Online Barcode Generator: Create Barcodes for Free!) but there seems to be a difference in how the image from this webservice is embedded into the PDF

Below are two images that show the difference

The first image is of a PDF that works (is printable). Notice how the yellow box (that appears when you hover over the barcode) only covers some of the numbers/letters. The yellow box is a link to the URL that returned the image (in this example:
https://barcode.tec-it.com/barcode.ashx?data=Test0001&code=&multiplebarcodes=false&translate-esc=fal...)

The second image shows a PDF that does not work (printer won’t print it). Here the yellow box covers all of the barcode. I do not know if this is the actual issue, but this is seemingly the only difference between the PDFs that work and those that do not.

Any suggestions on how to fix this are greatly appreciated!

Best regards

[Steve]

Has there been a change in how PDF files are generated?

Yup! Please contact support@appsheet.com for help with this.

[Viktor]

Thank you! I’ll contact them

[Fabian_Weller]

Hi @Viktor What was the response from support?

[Koichi_Tsuji]

It seems several people are reporting this, which also appears to be a bug on the basis of de-facto…

[Viktor]

@Fabian

The support team is currently investigating, but they initially suggested to try out different file formats. I used .png before, but from initial testing it seems like using .jpg might have solved the issue.

Unfortunately I can’t test myself, so I’ll rely on the information I get from the users of the app, but it sounds like the printer is printing the PDFs again when the image retrieved from the barcode service is saved as a .jpg instead of .png.

I’m still a bit curious to why .png doesn’t seem to work anymore though.

[Steve · Accepted solution]

Behind the scenes, AppSheet is migrating to a new PDF-generator service. The new service clearly has some differences. I would encourage you to make clear to Support your desire to use PNG files, and to ask that PNG support be restored.

[Viktor]

@Steve
I have let them know that there seems to be issues with the PNG format. For now, I’ll use JPG as this seems to work

[Ethan_U]

Epson Connect Printing Workflow Down Questions

I have been having a support conversation with Bryan about this I’m having the same issue (I can’t find his name to tag him) “I found a note that there was a change made in the PDF engine that will be rolled back later. Sounds like that will change today. You may not need to do anything with Epson Bryan from AppSheet”