About Composite documents and IDF
(EscapeE Professional only)
A "composite document" may be a single document which EscapeE has composed from a collection of other "component" documents. The component documents are just regular PCL, PDF and TIFF files. You may also use plugins to add text and barcodes to the composite document. EscapeE can export the composite document in the format you choose in the normal way.
The simplest composite documents may be created from a control file that is merely a list of the component file names. EscapeE automatically joins these component files, one after the other, into a single (composite) document. To build more complex composite documents, however, EscapeE needs a control file and a field definition file. The control file supplies the data for the fields in the field definition file. The field definition file sets up the way the control file's data is to be used so that EscapeE can build the composite document. This enables you to create complex composite documents using composite fields.
Creating a field definition file
In addition, a "composite document" may be composed of files and file fragments integrated into a single document using RedTitan's Intelligent Document Format control files. Programmers will recognize that IDF files use eXtensible Mark-up Language, so may like to use the RedTitan RTXML program to compose them. General users may prefer to use EscapeE's built-in IDF mechanism; "wizards" aid the construction of the most commonly used types of composite documents.