Good afternoon,
We are considering using some kind of anti-copy protection on our printed documents. Think job travelers, job control sheets, drawings, and first piece cards. We want to put a small red square on the image to show it has been officially printed and approved. Then if the document is copied we want to show the word “copy” in the red block (which will be black or grey after copying).
I have looked into various methods, and everything seems to point to the fact that we can’t print security features on the same printer we use to copy the documents in question. I hate to think we have to purchase special paper for this. This isn’t for legal reasons it is just for convenience. I did try making a pantograph in Gimp, but it didn’t really work well with our setup. (too readable)
I couldn’t find a security font, or an existing image I could save and print on my reports that would not look the same when photocopied.
Agreed. But also, any controlled document is usually invalid once printed. It is a snapshot in time when the document was approved but the status may very well have changed since its printing.
It certainly is not a requirement, but it would look nice. We often have to copy a job control packet to split a lot. We don’t use job splitting in Epicor. We have been doing it manually too long and can’t get away from this without a lot of baby steps. So, when we copy an approved job control packet it should lose its approved status. We don’t use color copiers, so the red box turns grey. If we could add an extra little feature in there to show “COPY” or “SPLIT” it would be nice. After the job packet is copied and it loses its approved status, someone has to review the newly created packet, and reapprove it with a physical stamp. This is tedious and a headache. We really want to split lots properly in Epicor, but the system is really entrenched.
Does not matter how entrenched it is, as long as it’s a problem, you are just delaying the inevitable. If you know what will fix the issue, it is better to do that then something easier.
We don’t know what would fix the issue. Even our highly paid consultant eventually shrugged and said you have to change the way your customers work. Hah!
Implement a ‘Eurion Constellation’ into the printed output - most copiers will detect this constellation during the scan/copy and fail to produce output (sometimes it will lock up the copier - forcing the user to reboot the copier). We found that a scan/copy could be produced if you covered up the constellation when we were setting up check printing in Epicor and needed some blank stock to test with (our check stock has the Eurion Constellation printed on it as well) - but most users will not know that .
You’d have to test with your copiers, as some B/W copiers may not care, since most currency is not B/W…
Well, just having an original document that is color will show that a copy was made. The control could be as simple as a red square is original and if it is gray, it’s a copy.
You could also implement paperless to address it.
But even using split job will require a reprint of the travelers to match the new jobs, so you would not really be saving anything.
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