Sharing, Downloading, and Printing Documents

Laserfiche offers several ways for you to print or download information from Laserfiche. You can print individual documents, or parts of documents. When downloading a document, you can download pages as a PDF, and you can download electronic files in their original formats; in addition, you can download folders and their contents as ZIP files. You can also send documents via email from within your repository, or attach documents directly to emails in Microsoft Outlook.

Sharing Documents

Sharing Documents through Direct Share

Laserfiche's direct share allows you to share content from your Laserfiche repository with external users in a manner that is tracked and secured within Laserfiche. Through direct share, you may add a password requirement in order for the recipient to view the shared content. This password has to be shared separately via a different mechanism. When you send documents through direct share, the recipient will receive a URL through which they can access the files. You can specify the number of days until the URL link expires.

With direct share you can:

  • Receive a notification when the recipient has downloaded the documents.
  • Disable the URL links you have sent.
  • View information on the documents you have shared such as the URL link status, the date the content was shared, the URL link expiration date, name of the documents shared, and whether the content was downloaded.
  • With the Manage Entry Access privilege, you can view all the above information for all content sent across the repository from any user. Additionally, you can disable links sent by any user across the repository.

Note: In order to use direct share you need to have the Print/Export feature right.

To send a document via direct share

  1. In the contents pane, right-click on the document to be sent and then click the Share icon in the toolbar. You may also right-click on the document and choose Share.
  2. In the Email Basket, select Direct Share to send the URL link with security configurations.
  3. Enter the recipient's email. For multiple recipients separate the emails with a "," or ";".
  4. Enter the number of days until the URL link expires in the Share expiration option. The URL link will expire in the exact number of days specified. For example, if the URL link is sent at 8:00 am on January 1st with a 2 day expiration time, the link will expire at 8:00 am on January 3rd. At the time of expiration, the URL link will no longer function.
  5. On the Email Basket, select and enter a password if you want to require the user to enter a password to view the shared content. Note that the password is not included in the email and you will need to provide it directly to the recipient.
  6. Click Send.

Note: Before sending a link via direct share, you may need to validate your email. To do so, click on the application picker in the upper right and go to Account. Find your account and next to your email click Verify to send a verification link to your email. Once you receive the "Welcome to Laserfiche" email, click on Verify. Alternatively, from the Account Administration page, click on your username in the upper-right next to the application picker, and click My Account. From there you will be taken to the My Account page, from where you can verify your email.

To view sent URL links through the Repository Administration page

  1. Click on the application picker in the toolbar.
  2. Click on Repository Administration.
  3. On the left-hand side, under Management, click on Activity and then select Direct Share.
  4. The Direct Share tab shows the recipient of the shared document, sharer, status of the link (active or inactive), date on which the document was shared, expiration date, names of the documents and whether the files were downloaded. You may also filter between active and inactive URL links by clicking All next to the search bar.

    5. Note: If you have the Manage Entry Access privilege, you can see information on all shared content across a repository. You may also revoke URL links by clicking on the Disable Link icon.

To view the status of files you have shared

From your repository page, click on the Shared icon in the folder pane. You will see with whom you have shared your content, the status, date shared, URL expiration date, document names, and whether the files have been downloaded. You may also disable links you have sent by clicking on the document and then the disable icon.

Sending an Email from Laserfiche

To send documents in email from Laserfiche, select one of more documents and click the Share button. The Email Basket will open. In the Email Basket, you can configure the following options:

  • Page range: For documents with pages, you can specify which pages should be included in the email. By default, the entire document will be included.
  • Send as: You can send either the document itself, a link to the document, or the folder path for the document. If the recipient has access to your repository, consider sending a link, as this allows you to preserve security and reduces the number of duplicate copies of documents.
  • Email: Select Use email client to manually send the message to download the email as an Outlook MSG file, which you can then send through your preferred email service, or clear the option to send the email using Laserfiche. If sending through Laserfiche, you will need to configure To, Subject, and message body information.
  • Password: If you are sending files, and have chosen the option to combine emailed documents into a single ZIP file, select Password tab to encrypt the ZIP file with a password. (See Download and Email Options, below, for more information about combining documents into a ZIP.)
Once you have configured the email, you can select Use email client to manually send the message. If you select the option and select Send, a .MSG file will be downloaded, and you can open it, add a subject, message, and recipients, and send it. You can then send the message from your email client. If the option is not selected, you will be prompted to provide a recipient, subject, and message. When you select Send, it will automatically be sent by Laserfiche.

Attaching a Laserfiche Document in Outlook

With Office Integration, you can attach documents from your repository directly in an email in Outlook without needing to open the repository in a browser. Create your email, and then open the Laserfiche ribbon or toolbar. Select Attach Laserfiche Document. You will be prompted to log in. Once you have logged in, you can browse to a document in your repository and add it to the email as a document.

Note: To use this feature, you must have Office Integration installed. See Working with Microsoft Office Documents for more information.

Downloading Documents and Folders

When downloading documents, you can customize information about how they will be downloaded. Note that all document formats can be downloaded as a briefcase; see Downloading a Collection of Documents and Folders as a Briefcase, below, for more information.

To download an electronic document

  1. Select a document in the folder browser or open a document in the document viewer, and select the Download button. The Download dialog box will open.
  2. Select Electronic File and click Download. Your document will be downloaded in its native format.

    Note: If your electronic file has pages or text, you will also have the option to download those components rather than the file itself. See To download a document with pages, below, for details.

To download a document with pages

  1. Select a document in the folder browser or open a document in the document viewer, and select the Download button. The Download dialog box will open.
  2. Select Image or Text.
  3. If you chose Image, select the format in which you want the image to be downloaded. Note: If you are downloading a PDF with pages, the PDF option will convert the pages to a new PDF. If you want to download the original PDF, download it as an electronic document, above.
  4. In the Select pages option, specify whether you want to download all pages, or a range or selection of pages.
  5. If you have chosen to download images as a PDF, optionally specify a password.
  6. Click Download.

To download multiple documents as a ZIP file

  1. Select multiple documents, either within a folder or from search results.
  2. Select the Download button. The Download dialog box will open.
  3. Select ZIP and then click Download.

Downloading Folders

If you select a folder to download, the folder and all its contents will be downloaded as a single ZIP file. Documents as pages will be downloaded as PDFs, while documents with electronic files will be downloaded in their original format. In addition, the folder structure will be preserved within the ZIP file.

To download a folder, select the folder and click the More (The More button, three vertical dots.) button, then select Download.

Tip: You can also generate a report of all the contents of a folder without downloading the contents themselves.

Downloading a Collection of Documents and Folders as a Briefcase

A briefcase is a special collection of Laserfiche documents, including their metadata, that can be downloaded and re-imported into your repository. Briefcases are useful for sharing documents with other sites that use Laserfiche, or for backing up a set of documents. A briefcase includes not only the documents themselves, but also their folder structure, and Laserfiche-specific information such as annotations and metadata.

Briefcases are saved as files with the extension LFB.

To download a briefcase, select a group of documents and/or folders and right-click and select Download, or click the Download button. Select the Briefcase option. Provide a name for the briefcase, and specify whether you want to include subfolders of any selected folders. If you want to encrypt the briefcase, select Encrypt and provide a password. The collection of documents and folders, including their metadata, will be downloaded as a single LFB file.

Printing

The method for printing differs depending on whether you are printing a document with pages (including PDFs), or printing an electronic file.

Printing a Document with Pages

You can print a document with pages (including PDFs) from either the Folder Browser or the Document Viewer. In the Folder Browser, select the document and click the More (The More button, three vertical dots.) button, then click Print. In the Document Viewer, click the document name in the upper left and select Print. You can then choose to print either the entire document, or only a specified page range.

Printing a Document with an Electronic File

The method for printing the electronic file portion of a document varies depending on the type of document being printed:

  • PDFs and Word documents can be printed directly from within Laserfiche. Either select the document in the folder browser or open it in the document viewer, and select the Print command. You will be prompted to choose whether to print its electronic file, images, or text.

  • All other electronic file types must be downloaded before they can be printed. Download the file, then open it in its native application. You can then use that application's print functionality. Note that if the document has image pages or text, those can still be printed directly from the web client.

Providing Reasons

Depending on your repository's settings, you may be prompted to provide a reason when printing and downloading. If this is the case, you will be provided with a list of possible reasons. Select the reason most relevant to your download or print task. Optionally, you can also provide a comment that will be saved to the audit log along with the selected reason.

Download and Email Options

You can customize many of the settings of your downloaded or emailed documents in Laserfiche. Download and email options determine what annotations will be included on downloaded files, the PDF format and quality level of downloaded PDFs, and how documents will be handled when emailing documents. See Download Options for more information.