How Impressu builds practical automation with callas pdfToolbox
Opens in new tab From broken PDF to Perfect Postal Piece in record time
“Before I started with DocuPost, I thought getting PDF files from customers and sending them off to printers would be a piece of cake. We focused on building our DocuPost mail management platform; PDF quality didn’t even register as a challenge. That changed once we started receiving real-world PDF files!” David Nelson, Founder and CEO of DocuPost, started the company based on personal frustrations with sending physical postal mail and the belief that it should be as simple as sending emails.
We realized that building reliable PDF handling ourselves was far more complex than we anticipated. At some point, you have to decide whether that’s really where you want to spend your energy. Was resolving PDF problems really part of our core business? I was convinced it wasn’t, but for a while I also thought I wouldn’t find technology that solved the problems I was seeing.
David Nelson
Founder and CEO of DocuPost
DocuPost is a fully cloud-based platform that allows businesses to upload documents for printing and mailing through a distributed network of print providers across North America. To keep the service simple, the platform must process virtually any incoming PDF, regardless of how it was created.
That proved to be the real challenge.
The Problem with PDF
DocuPost encountered the full reality of PDF files in the wild. Customers create PDFs using countless different tools, each of which can introduce its own quirks.
Initially, DocuPost combined several tools to optimize and correct incoming files. When those tools could not resolve a problem, the platform often had to rasterize the PDF.
That created a new set of issues. Rasterized files had lower quality, were much larger and caused problems for DocuPost’s print partners.
While looking for a better approach, DocuPost discovered callas software through an unexpected source: ChatGPT recommended it as a solution for PDF processing.
“I checked out the callas software website,” David recalls. “To be honest, the capabilities of pdfToolbox sounded almost too good to be true. We were definitely a little skeptical that it could really do everything it claimed.”
Racing to Implementation
The integration moved much faster than expected.
“What stood out immediately was how practical everything was,” says David.
With pdfToolbox Desktop, we could analyze and understand problems right away. And whatever we configured there translated directly into our automated environment. The callas team itself was incredibly reactive; it was very clear that they knew everything there was to know about PDF and were focused on helping us succeed.
Partners in automation
From the very beginning, the callas software technology was focused on automation. Whether it is through hot folders, command-line, development SDK, or a REST API, all of the functionality in pdfToolbox can be automated. Even the manual Desktop tool is designed to make it as easy as possible to test and configure automated workflows.
This is very similar to DocuPost, which deals with customers such as The Home Depot, The North Face, Penske, JetBlue, and many more that have high-volume demands and expect strict SLAs. Having PDF technology that makes verifying and correcting quick and reliable is essential.
The use of pdfToolbox benefits DocuPost’s customers, but it mainly makes a strategic difference for DocuPost itself:
Instead of fighting PDF problems, we can now focus on our core product and our customers. That shift made all the difference.
