In the HotFolder Settings you can create and configure your HotFolders. You can access them by clicking on the settings icon in the top right corner of the main window and then clicking on the HotFolder Settings tab.
On the left side of the window you can see a list with all your HotFolder configurations. Access the settings for a specific folder by clicking on the name in the list. You can create a new configuration by using the plus below the list. This will open the wizard that will help you set up a new HotFolder, see ‘Using the wizard’ below.
The minus below the list allows you to remove an existing HotFolder configuration. This does not delete the actual folders in the file system of your computer. If this HotFolder has a printer selected you can choose to remove the PDFCreator printer and profile assigned to it.
By clicking on the pen icon you can rename the currently selected HotFolder configuration.
To make creating new HotFolder configurations much easier, HotFolder 1.2.0 introduces a wizard to help with that. It will allow you to create a HotFolder with default settings or guide you through customizing all options.
Note
When you start the wizard, please make sure that PDFCreator is not running, as HotFolder has to change the PDFCreator settings when creating new printers and profiles.
First, you need to select a name for your HotFolder. Then you choose the folder that should become your HotFolder. Here you also have the option of completing the wizard with default settings or choosing every option yourself.
If you select Default Settings, the wizard will create folders for your output, source and unprintable files in your HotFolder. It will also create a new PDFCreator printer and profile with the required settings. If you want to adjust the profile settings you can do so in PDFCreator.
If you selecte Custom Settings, the wizard will help you configure everything yourself. You can choose which PDFCreator printer and profile should be used or create new ones. You can also select where your created files should be saved. Keep in mind that this is a PDFCreator Settings and after configuring it in the wizard it can only be changed inside PDFCreator. Finally you need to select what happens to your source files and the files HotFolder can’t print.
Note
Please also note that a User Account Control dialog will open when HotFolder tries to create new printers. You need to allow the PrinterHelper.exe to create a new printer in order to successfully create your configuration.
You can choose a HotFolder you’ve created by clicking on its name in the list on the left side of the window. This allows you to configure it.
You can open the different sections to adjust different settings.
In the HotFolder section, you can change the folder that should be watched. In the Source Files section you can change what should happen to all the processed source files. In the Unprintable Files section you can do the same for the files that HotFolder can’t print.
In the Printer section you can change the PDFCreator printer this HotFolder configuration should print to. Note that after completing the wizard, you need to open PDFCreator to adjust your profile settings including the output location of the files created by PDFCreator. If the profile assigned to the selected printer has a valid autosave location selected, you can open that location directly by clicking the Open Autosave Location button. This is where your created files will be saved.
Filters allow you to customize which files HotFolder will convert. In the Filter section of a HotFolder configuration you can create a list of file extentions. You can add values like “.txt” or “.pdf”.
With the option No Filter this feature is deactivated.
If you select the Exclude option, the file types in the list will be excluded from the conversion. All file types that are not in the list will be converted as usual.
Select the Restrict option to only convert the file types that are included in the list. All other files will be ignored.