Hello,
Our office is using an archaic, but functioning well process to trasmit data to a main office. For 10-15 years the main office has been accepting data (writen or typed) on inspection forms which are faxed to them. They take the incoming faxes and run them through an array of software & hardward to read certain data elements off of very specific locations on the image being faxed and convert that data into accurate text-based database data. Their system is smart enough to orientate the image, scale it, etc to make sure it's reading the correct data from the correct locations. The admin of this system informed me that it works so well, that they haven't updated where it's looking for data on the images in 10 years. It works so well, faxes from nearly any type of fax machine can be accepted.
We started a process on a Workcentre 5845 which instead of faxing paper faxes a .PDF file of the form from the users computer using the Xerox print/fax driver. While it might sound minor, this was a big deal to us and we no longer need to print. One thing we learned is that we had to specificially use the PCL6 driver (not postscript -- this kind of stretched the image) and this was working smoothly for months. The main office was able the read the data on our forms clearly and accurately. That all changed when a printer admin came through and upgraded the printers firmware from 071.190.104.01690 to 071.190.034.06000.
As soon as this change happened the main office was no longer able to automatically read our data via this process. They were reporting that the image received was about 1/4" too low on the page to be picked up and read. Here is an example: http://i.imgur.com/8e6lzDC.gif However, paper faxes sent through this machine worked just fine. I can even print my PDF and fax the paper version fine. To try and match the firmware upgrade I tried to upgrading my PC6 print/fax driver from 5.347.6.0 to 5.351.8.0 which didn't fix anything.
Afer that I got the printer admin over and begged him to revert the change, but the older firmware is no longer available for download.
SO, my ultimate question is: How can we treat a fax being "printed" via the fax driver exactly the same a paper someone places into the machine in faxes? Because in my experiance on these Xerox machines, they do not work the same. If, not, how can I get an older firmware to put things back to working order before this change?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
-Mike
PS: x64 bit, Win7 for everything involved...