From broken PDF to Perfect Postal Piece in record time

callas software, a leading provider of PDF automation technology for print and document workflows, announced DocuPost as a new OEM Partner.

“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,” David explains. “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.”

DocuPost is a fully cloud-based platform that enables businesses to upload documents for printing and mailing through a distributed network of print providers across North America. To deliver on its promise of simplicity, virtually any incoming PDF must work– regardless of how it was created.

That turned out to be the real challenge.

The problem with PDF

What DocuPost encountered was the full reality of PDF in the wild. PDF files can be created with a myriad of tools, and correctly ironing out all the quirks in incoming files is not easy. DocuPost started by stringing together a combination of tools to optimize and correct incoming PDF files, but often had to resort to rasterizing them, which created its own problems. Rasterized files are lower quality, much larger, and cause issues with print partners.

While exploring alternatives, DocuPost came across callas software – interestingly, through a recommendation from ChatGPT, which identified callas as a best-in-class solution for PDF processing.

“I checked out the callas software website,” recalls David, “and the capabilities of pdfToolbox that I found there, sounded too good to be true, to be honest. There was definitely a bit of skepticism on our part about whether the claims that were made could be reality.”

Racing to implementation

But the integration moved fast. 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,” David concludes. “That shift made all the difference.”