There are different ways to use variables with watched folders
1. (Recommended) Set up a “filter” so that the variables are picked out from the file name.
2. (Recommended for automatic systems) Use a variable settings file qvars.txt. The setting file can be
a. Stored in the IN folder
b. Provided in a job folder.
3. Use a variable settings file, and a command line option to specify the settings file.
4. Use command line options to set each variable.
Command line options are specified under Advanced setup, available from setup dialog 3. For working with command lines for variables, see Setting variables.
It’s easy to set up variables from the name of your file. This lets you choose options like number of copies, rows or columns just by carefully setting the file name. Here is an example
TUESDAY_ADVERT_273!44-3-2.pdf
In this example, we’ve used 44, 3 and 2 as the variable values. (The 273 is just part of the regular name). We need to tell Quite Hot Imposing how to read these names, by typing a filter. To do that we need to know the names of each variable we want to set. Let’s suppose that they are copies, rows and columns. And we want to use them in that order.
The filter we use is
*!<copies>+<rows>+<columns>
Let’s break this down. The * at the start means “anything”, that is the normal part of the name. Actually, almost anything. The normal part mustn’t have a ! mark because that is what starts the variables.
You can see that the filter has the names of the variables we want to use. We always put them like this <name>. There is no < or > in the actual filename, this just tells Quite Hot Imposing that we have a variable name.
The other things we see are ! (before <copies>) and + (between variables). These symbols ! and + are not special, they are just what we want to put in the file name. There could be any number of characters, including letters. Here are some different ways we might set for those three variables.
*--<copies>-<rows>+<columns> example UPDATE_BOOKLET--44-3-2.pdf
*$(<copies>+<rows>$$<columns>) example PIC PAGE 1$(44+3$$2).pdf
* K-<copies> R-<rows> C-<columns> example LEGEND_42 K-44 R-3 C-2.pdf
The names have to exactly match. If they don’t match there will be an error message, and the file will not be processed, because you probably don’t want to run a job without the settings.
This filter will force the variables to be at the end of the name. But if you want to allow more info after the variables, just put a * at the end. If you want the variables to be at the start, remove the * from the start.
You must have a separator between variables. For example you could not put <rows><columns> directly because there is no way to know when <rows> finishes and <columns> starts. You also cannot have an asterisk (*) immediately before or after a <variable> reference, there must be at least one character between them.
Some characters aren’t allowed, often because they aren’t allowed in file names. Never use any of these: colon (:), forward slash (/), backwards slash (\), vertical bar (|), curly brackets ({ or }) or square brackets ([ or ]). In Windows, you must not use question mark (?), double quote (") in a file name.
Before Quite Hot Imposing 6.0, it was not possible to start two queues at the same time if they used the same input folder. From 6.0, it is possible to set up multiple queues on the same input folder, which use filters to decide which work to do. There is independent of variables.
· You can start multiple queues with the same input folder provided that a filter is set on each of the queues.
· When queues have filters, they are checked in the order of their queue number. The first queue to match will do the work.
· You can add a “catch all” filter – such as just an asterisk (*) – to pick up files for which no other filter is defined. These must be the last one for the queue – otherwise it will never check the later filters.
· You can right click on a queue and choose Move to rearrange the queues to suit the filters. Note that you must restart Quite Hot Imposing before the changes to ordering take effect.
A qvars.txt file is a variable setting file, or the same information listed in a “Set variables” command in a sequence. It is a text file with a simple format. For example:
# Here are my variables
totalrows=2
totalcolumns=3
title="Sample job title"
Full details on Variables: Variables settings files are available.
If you put a file called qvars.txt in the IN folder for a queue it remains there until you delete it, and affect all jobs in that queue. Each queue could have a different qvars.txt file.
Job folders allow you to drop a folder into the watched IN folder, and receive a single PDF. All the PDF files in the job folder are combined. (For more details on job folders, see https://www.quite.com/hotimposing/job_folders.htm) . When using job folders, you can add a qvars.txt file to the job folder itself, along with the PDFs to be combined. A job folder could contain only a single PDF and qvars.txt.