Attachment options

This article shows the various options available for processing Notes attachments during your conversion jobs. These options can be configured in the PDF Settings section of your SWING PDF Converter database (the Attachments tab).

The same options can also be configured using LotusScript API. If PDF Converter is being deployed programmatically, see our development section for more information:

pageFor developers

Attach files in their native formats

The Attach files in their native formats option allows you to embed the document attachments inside the created PDF document in their native formats. To see how to access the attachments later please refer to the following article:

pageWhere can I find my attachments?

Two additional options allow you to select how inline images and ZIP attachments will be processed (see below screenshot).

If Enable inline images is set to Yes, then the image attachments (such as PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP) will be displayed on the PDF pages as images and not as attachment icons.

If Attach as it is option is enabled, then the ZIP file attachments will be embedded in the PDF file in ZIP format. Note that in this case it is recommended to change the ZIP file extension from .ZIP to .7Z or similar (since Adobe does not allow ZIP files to be opened from within a PDF file). You can change the ZIP file extension automatically during conversion jobs by checking the Change archive extension to 7z check-box.

If you select the Extract and process individual files option, then the PDF Converter will automatically extract the contents of the ZIP file in the background and process them just as if they were normal attachments.

Convert files to PDF and attach

The Convert files to PDF and attach option allows you to convert several attachment types to PDF and then attach the created PDF files to the main PDF document (i.e. the converted Notes document or email). This feature requires one of the following Office packages to be installed on the same machine on which you're running your exports: Microsoft Office, Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice, IBM Lotus Symphony.

If an attachment can not be converted to PDF (e.g. if it is not of a supported type) then it will be embedded within the PDF file in its native format.

The other two options for processing inline images and ZIP attachments work in the same way as described in previous section.

Convert files to PDF and append

The Convert files to PDF and append option works in the same as the previous "Convert files to PDF and attach" option, except the processed attachments will be appended to the main PDF file, resulting in one long PDF file.

Extract attachments to disk

The Extract attachments to disk option allows you to export attachments separately from the created PDF files. When you're exporting attachments to disk there are two different scenarios:

1. If you are creating a PDF package, a Single PDF file with a bookmarks view or a single PDF document, then the document attachments will be exported to the location on your hard drive that you specify in the Temporary attachments folder setting (for example, in the below image the temporary attachments folder is set to C:\attachments).

2. If you are creating individual PDF files, then the attachments will be saved in the same location where you save the PDF files. In this case a sub-folder will be created for each PDF file created, and the sub-folder will be named same as the PDF file but with an "-ATT" text appended at the end (indicating that the folder contains attachments, see below image).

Additional options in this section allow you to specify the way in which attachment icons will be displayed in the PDF file and how inline images and ZIP files will be processed.

If you select the Show original icon option then the original attachment icons (e.g. Word, PowerPoint etc.) will be shown in the same position in the PDF document as in the Notes document/email.

If you select the Show "no attachment" icon option then the original attachment icon will appear in PDF, however it will also contain a small red icon in the corner indicating that the attachment icon is inactive (i.e. it can not be double-clicked).

If you select the Do not show icon option then no icons will be shown in the PDF document.

Inline images and ZIP files will be processed in the same way as described in previous sections.

Do not export file attachments

This option will disable export of attachments to PDF.

Attachment icons and inline images will be processed in the same way as described in previous sections.