How to setup/configure IrfanView for KCS document conversion

Issue

Steps to setup IrfanView for document conversion with TIF files on a KCS Link Server

Solution

Step 1: Setup IrfanView

• Download the latest version of IrfanView from http://www.irfanview.com/ 
• Please take care that IrfanView is only free for non-commercial use. For commercial use you have to purchase a registered license. Also see: https://www.irfanview.com/eula.htm
• Navigate in Windows Explorer to that folder, where you saved the iviewXXX_setup.exe (e.g. iview432_setup.exe)
• Right click the file and select the context menu option 'Run as Administrator'.
• Confirm the elevation screen displayed by the Windows 'User account control' and the setup will start.
• In the first setup screen select the option to 'Install for all users', remember the chosen installation folder:
  Then click 'Next'
  
• The next setup screen shows you the changes for this specific version, click 'Next'.
• The next setup screen provides the possibility to configure file extension associations. This is not necessary for KCS document conversion, so press 'None' and then 'Next'.
• The next setup screen offers the possibility to install the 'Google Toolbar'. Uncheck the checkbox and press 'Next'.
• The next setup screen offers the possibility to configure the location for the IrfanView INI file. Select 'IrfanView folder' and press 'Next'.
• In the final setup screen uncheck the checkbox to 'Start IrfanView' and press 'Done'

Step 2: Configure IrfanView

• Now copy a multi-page TIFF file to the Link server. It is important that it is a multi-page TIFF file, otherwise we cannot setup IrfanView to print 'All pages' of the TIFF file (by default only the first page will be printed).
• Locate the 'IrfanView 4.32' shortcut in the Windows start menu within the folder 'IrfanView'.
• Right click the shortcut 'IrfanView 4.32' (if there are multiple shortcuts use the latest version number) and select 'Run as Administrator' from the context menu.

Please Note: It is important to start the application with 'Run as administrator', otherwise the options for printing all pages will not be stored in the global INI file but into a user specific INI file located in the Windows user's Virtual store directory. Later on this option will not be used when converting the files with TCDCLINK.

• Confirm the elevation screen from the Windows user account control and IrfanView will start.
• Load the multi-page TIFF file with the menu option 'File - Open'.
• Then select the menu option 'File - print'.
• A print dialog with different options is displayed.
  Enable the radio button 'Print all pages' and - optionally also 'Best fit to page (aspect ratio)
• Press the 'Print' button in this dialog. Printing does not succeed because there is no TCLINK application which gets the print output, but in this way the selected print options are stored to the INI file.
• You can check this by opening the file
  C:\Program Files (x86)\IrfanView\i_view32.ini
  with an editor like Notepad. Within the section [Print] you should find the entry:
  MultipageOpt=1
• Close IranView with the menu option 'File - Exit'.
• Then open 'Control Panel' - 'Devices and Printers', select the 'TOPCALL Fax to TCDC' printer and doulbleclick it.
• Delete the unsuccessful print entry from the list using the 'Delete' button.

Step 3: TCLINK and TCDCLINK specific changes to use IrfanView

• Verify that there is no TIFF.TXT or TIF.TXT file located in the C:\TCOSS\TCLP\SCRIPT folder.
• Change the registry settings for your TCLINK instance in order to not convert TIFF files using the TCIMG32 module. To do so start regedit and navigate to the registry value of your instance TCLINKxx:
  HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\TOPCALL\TCLINKxx\General\FmtTIF\InputExtension
  and remove the value 'TIF,TIFF' from there, so that the registry value is empty. On a 32 bit Windows system you will find the setting directly under: HKLM\SOFTWARE\TOPCALL\TCLINKxx\General\FmtTIF\InputExtension
• Now configure TCDCLINK to use IrfanView for converting files with extension .TIF and .TIFF.
• Navigate to the registry sub-key:
  HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\TOPCALL\TCDCLINK\ShellExecPrint
  or - on a 32 bit Windows system
  HKLM\SOFTWARE\TOPCALL\TCDCLINK\ShellExecPrint
• Add a new String-Value (REG_SZ) for the registry value name use .tif.
• Enter the full path to the i_view32.exe, enclose it in double-quotes, then add a blank '%1', another blank and finally the command line option /print.
  So on a 64-bit Windows system this will typically be: (including the double quotes)

     'C:\Program Files (x86)\IrfanView\i_view32.exe' '%1' /print

  and on a 32-bit Windows system this will typically be:

     'C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe' '%1' /print

• Create a new String-Value (REG_SZ) named .tiff (now with 2 'f' characters) and assign the same command line as in the previous step.
• So at the end your registry should look like shown below:

Step 4: Additional actions to get it working.

• Finally you must change the spooler settings of the KCS printers, otherwise it might happen that the resulting image contains an additional empty page at the end.
  To do so:
• Start Control Panel - Devices and Printers.
• Select the 'TOPCALL FAX to TCDC' printer driver.
• Right click the printer and select 'Printer properties' from the Context menu
• Navigate to the 'Advanced' tab.
• Change the spooler option to 'Print directly to printer'.
• Press OK to save the settings.
• Apply the same settings to the 'TOPCALL TIFF to TCDC' printer driver.
• Restart your TCLINKxx instance and theTCfW TCDCLINK via KCS Monitor to make the changes in the registry effective.
• Send a message with a Multi-page TIFF attachment to a FAX recipient and - if used - also to a recipient converting the attachment with the 'TOPCALL TIFF to TCDC' printer driver. Check the resulting output in KCS TCFW client.

 

This was tested in following scenario:

Windows 2008 (32 and 64 Bit), Windows 2008 R2

KCS 9.0 and higher

Tested with IrfanView version 4.32 on Windows 2008 R2 running KCS 9.1

Level of Complexity 

Moderate

 

Applies to  

Product	Version	Build	Environment	Hardware
Kofax Communication Server	9.x, 10.x

References

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