Equisys Zetadocs PDF 2.0

Equisys is best known for its network fax software, Zetafax. As the sun sets on faxing, it has turned its attention to emailing documents. The best format for this has to be Adobe PDF (portable document format). There's no shortage of PDF-authoring apps - some free - but there's a dearth of network-capable software.

To the bread-and-butter PDF creator Zetadocs adds the ability to directly email a PDF from within the client to multiple recipients. Separate documents can also be combined into a single PDF and emailed on a corporate letterhead.

It can take this one stage further by automating the creation and despatch of PDF documents. You could automatically create an email sales quote that included terms of business, price lists and brochures. And because it's networked, standard templates can be defined and held centrally, standardising the look of your literature. Zetadocs is integrated with Word and Outlook and as a result can offer personalised PDF creation, via Office's Mail Merge function.

Zetadocs PDF collects up the documents you've printed to the PDF printer driver and lets you manipulate them before despatching via email or fax. An accessories panel on the right lists the PDF components you might want to overlay on your document, such as a letterhead. You simply drag what you want across to the centre pane to merge it in to one PDF. You can then click on the Send button to despatch your composite.

One area where a PDF automator such as this is useful is in accounts, which tend to generate mountains of paper each month. However, this is dealt with by a separate product, Zetadocs for Accounting. A 5 user license for Zetadocs PDF costs $2700.