2023:Render (Activity)

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The Render activity's property panel

print Render is an Activity that converts files of various formats to PDF. It does this by digitally printing the file to PDF using the Grooper Render Printer. This normalizes electronic document content from file formats Grooper cannot read natively to PDF (which it can read natively), allowing Grooper to extract the text via the format_letter_spacing_wide Recognize Activity.

You may download and import the file(s) below into your own Grooper environment (version 2023). There is a Batch with the example document(s) discussed in this tutorial.
Please upload the Project to your Grooper environment before uploading the Batch. This will allow the documents within the Batch to maintain their classification status.

About

Render effectively "prints" the document as a PDF file, outputting a PDF document containing a scanned image of that document and any native text data. This is done using the Grooper Render Printer. In order to do this, four conditions must be met:

  1. The Grooper Render Printer must be installed on the machine running the Render activity. For information on how to install the Grooper Render Printer visit the How To section of this article.
  2. The Grooper Render Printer must be set as the default printer under for the user account running the Render activity.
  3. The native application for the file type must be installed on the machine running the Render activity. For example, Word must be installed in order for Render to render .docx files as PDFs.
  4. The native application must provide a shell print verb. In other words, when you right click the file in Windows File Explorer, a "Print" option is present.

Once the document is processed with the Render activity, you will be able to manipulate the document as if it is a PDF document in Grooper. You will be able to use other PDF related activities, such as Split Pages to split out individual pages of multi-page PDFs and the native PDF text extraction functionality of the Recognize activity.


Before rendering to PDF using Render


After rendering to PDF using Render

Render and Activity Processing

For Batch processing, the Render activity can only run on one individual machine at a time, using a single thread of processing resources. This means a Grooper Activity Processing service must be created using a Processing Queue with its Concurrency Mode set to PerMachine.

Processing Queues control how much of your system's resources are allocated to processing Activities. Most activities can take full advantage of your system's parallel processing resources and grab multiple threads at a time. Furthermore, multiple instances of an activity can generally run on multiple machines.

  • For example, four workstations working in the same Grooper Repository could each run two instances of the Recognize activity as long as there are the threads available to process each task.

However, the Render activity is different. It can only run on one machine at a time, using a single thread. To reiterate, that means only one Render task can perform at a time on a single machine at a time.

  • Each document rendered by the Render activity must be converted to a PDF one at a time.
  • Furthermore, if multiple machines are attempting to execute the Render activity, they have to wait their turn until the machine ahead of them is finished.

For more information on how to set this up, visit the How To section of this article.

How To

There are several components to consider for configuration of the Render activity.

Install the Grooper Render Printer

1. Download the Grooper Render Printer installer

First, download the Grooper Render Printer Installer. Click this link to download the installer files.

2. Extract the installer files and run the installer

Locate the downloaded zip file in Windows File Explorer. Right click the zip file and select "Extract All..." In the next window, choose the location to extract the installer files and press the "Extract" button.


Navigate through the extracted folders until you locate the "Setup.exe" file, seen below. Right click the "Setup.exe" file and select "Run as administrator"

3. Step through the installer prompts

Upon opening the "Setup.exe" file, the Grooper Render Printer Installer will run. Click the "Next" button to continue through the installer's prompts.


Press the "Finish" button to finish installing the Grooper Render Printer.

4. Set the Grooper Render Printer as the default printer

Open the Devices panel in your machine's Windows Settings. You will see the Grooper Render Printer listed in the "Printers & scanners" tab.


To make the Grooper Render Printer your default printer, select the Grooper Render Printer from the list of printers and scanners and press the "Manage" button.


On the following screen, press the "Set as default" button. Ensure that the "Printer status:" is listed as "Default"

Set up Activity Processing for Render

1. Add a new Processing Queue

In order to use the Render activity in a Batch Process, you will need to create a new Processing Queue.


  1. Processing Queues are created in the Queues folder.
  2. Right click the Queues folder and select "Add" then "Processing Queue..."
  3. Name the Processing Queue whatever you'd like. Press "Execute" to finish naming the Processing Queue and create it.
    • Since we are configuring an Activity Processing Service to run the Render activity, it makes sense to name this Processing Queue "Render".


  2. This creates a new Processing Queue object with the given name in the Node Tree.
  3. Change the Concurrency Mode property from Multiple to PerMachine
    • You may see a popup window saying "You must run Grooper as an Administrator to modify services." This is letting you know you will need to run Grooper Config as an administrator to create and edit the Activity Processing service that will use this Processing Queue. However, you must still create the Processing Queue from the Design page. Just press the "OK" button to get rid of this window.
  4. Press the "Save" button when finished.

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Render must run using a PerMachine Concurrency Mode


2. Set up the Activity Processing service

Next, you must Install an Activity Processing Service using the Tread Pool created in the previous step. Grooper Services are installed through the Grooper Config application. You must run Grooper Config as an administrator to install and edit services.


  1. Locate the Grooper Config application (seen here using the Windows Start menu).
  2. Right click Grooper Config and select "Run as administrator" to run the program with the administrator's rights.

⚠

You must run Grooper Config as an administrator to install or edit a Service.


  2. In Grooper Config, click "Edit Services".


  2. Press the "Install..." button to add a new service.
  3. In the "Install New Service" window, select "Activity Processing"
  4. Press the "OK" button. This will take you to the configuration screen for this service.

3. Configure the Activity Processing service

Next, you just need to configure the service's settings. In this case, we will just set the Queue Name property to the Processing Queue created in Step 1.

  1. Select the Queue Name property. Using the dropdown menu, select the Processing Queue created in Step 1 (Here, named "Render").


  2. Ensure the Number of Threads property remains at 1.
    • The Render activity must run single-threaded.
  3. Enter the User Name and Password credentials for the administrator's account if not already present.
  4. Press the "Execute" button when finished.

⚠

The Grooper Service user account must have the following permissions:

File store access

  • Type: NTFS\Share
  • Reason: Read and write access to the Grooper file store location

Database access

  • Type: SQL
  • Reason: Read and write access to the Grooper database

Logon As Service

  • Type: Local Security Policy
  • Reason: Run services installed via Grooper Command Console

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  2. On the following screen, press the "Start" button to run the Activity Processing Service.

4. Set the Processing Queue in your Batch Process Step

Last, the Render step of your Batch Process must be told which Processing Queue to use.


  1. Select the Render step of your Batch Process.
  2. In the "Step Properties" panel, select the Queue Name property. Using the dropdown menu, select the Processing Queue created in Step 1 (Here, named "Render").


Set up Render Printer for multiple users and service accounts

Grooper Render Printer installs under the context of a single user: The account/user that is logged in when installing it for the first time.

  • In typical scenarios, this is the service account running the Activity Processing service processing Render tasks.

If only one account/user is ever going to process Render tasks, this is no problem. However, if multiple users need to process Render tasks, additional steps need to be taken to ensure multiple users can run the Grooper Render Printer.

To ensure a user/account who did not install the Grooper Render Printer can use it to execute Render tasks, perform the following configuration tasks:

  1. Log in as the user/service account that will execute Render activity tasks.
  2. Ensure the Grooper Render Printer is the default printer.
    • Open the "Printers & Scanners" settings in Windows. Select the Grooper Render Printer. If it is not already listed as "Default", select "Manage". Then, select "Set as default".
  3. Go to the local user/account's "Documents" folder in Windows File Explorer.
    • C:\Users\<loggedInUser>\Documents\
  4. Create a folder named GrooperRender
  5. Next, you will need to edit the environment variables for the logged in user (not the system variables).
    • An easy way to find these is to hit the Windows Start button and search for "Edit environment variables for your account".
  6. In the "Environment Variables" window, click "New..." under the "User variables for <loggedInUser>".
    • A "New User Variable" window will appear.
  7. For the "Variable Name:" enter GROOPER_RENDERPATH
  8. For the "Variable Value:" enter the path for the folder created in Step 3.
    • C:\Users\<loggedInUser>\Documents\GrooperRender
  9. Click "OK" in the "New User Variables" window.
  10. You should see the new variable added to the "User variables for <loggedInUser>" list. Click "OK" to finish.
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