PRODOK Engineering provides consultation, design, development and training services to customers throughout the world.
We're one of the leading experts in the field of Smart PDF - enhanced PDF solutions utilizing client-side and server-side programming.
We also have quietly become one of the top places to turn to for intelligent forms design and management.
In addition, we have been building clean, accessible, standards-compliant web sites since the last '90s - way before "standards-compliant" became trendy.
We're located minutes from Zürich, the business and financial center of Switzerland. We work with partners worldwide to increase our versatility.
Sometimes people ask us why our company is called PRODOK Engineering, rather than PRODOK Design or something like that. Judging from the number of emails we receive from engineering students asking about internships, we guess that it can be a bit confusing.
The reason we named ourselves PRODOK Engineering is that we think of ourselves as engineers of solutions. We may not build physical bridges or buildings, but we build the bridges that help you communicate in the best ways possible with your customers, whatever the tools and methods used.
Max is a well known figure in the Acrobat/PDF community, where he is known as the "guru of PDF scripting". His custom-built JavaScript applications based on the Acrobat Forms engine have been known to draw gasps even from Adobe programmers. Besides his consulting work for numerous clients, he speaks frequently at conferences and conducts highly regarded intensive workshops in Switzerland, Germany and the United States about PDF technology.
With a Master's degree in engineering (dipl. Ing. ETH) from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, he brings a solid understanding of the underlying technical issues to PRODOK's many technology-oriented clients.
Max also has extensive experience in technical writing and translation. He is fluent in English, German, and French and understands restaurant-Italian and sushi-Japanese very well.
Makiko (Maki) brings a unique combination of an understanding of scripting and programming issues which are needed for interactivity and dynamic presentation with a designer’s sensibility to her projects. She has written a book, JavaScript + CSS + DOM Magic, published by New Riders Publishing. Maki has been a frequent speaker at various industry conferences, such as Seybold, Web Builders, and Web Design, on the subjects of CSS/web markup and PDF.
Originally from Tokyo, Maki lived in the New York City area before moving to Switzerland in 1995. She speaks English, Japanese, German and French with varying degrees of proficiency. A long time blogger, she has a popular food blog called I was really just very hungry, and her personal web site is makikoitoh.com.
PRODOK Engineering is dedicated to providing customized solutions tailored to your special needs. We aren’t just limited to web sites or PDF, or any particular technology. We always look at the big picture, and suggest the methods and tools best suited to your needs.
We have advised companies big and small on various customized paper-to-screen or low-paper workflow solutions. Some of the solutions we have provided include building an intranet travel expense reporting system for an international non-profit organization; streamlining the data collection procedures for a national tax office; an intranet “employee rewards” catalog and ordering system for a multinational company; and providing a WAN print-on-demand solution for the retail network of a consumer electronics company.
PRODOK Engineering specializes in the development of highly customized PDF based applications. We are one of the leading developers of “Smart PDF” (customized, scripted PDF) solutions. Here are a just a few examples:
With our unparalleled knowledge of PDF applications in the business world, we can provide consultation services on all your PDF needs.
Whether you just need a cosmetic re-design or want to add some state of the art server- or client-side to your site, we will meet your needs. We realize that a web presence does not, and should not exist in a vacuum. It should be integrated with all the other aspects of your marketing, customer service, and data collection systems. We have been providing complete web site construction solutions, from information architecture, content development, design, and front- and backend programming, since 1995.
Our preferred method for web design is to work from Photoshop/Illustrator comps and to handcode that to streamlined, standards-compliant markup. We make the extra effort required to create sites that that easy to manage and update. And of course, we pay great attention to accessibility issues, usability, fast load-times, functionality, as well as clean, appealing design.
We are also experienced in implementing content management and blogging systems, in particular the excellent open-source Drupal, as well as Wordpress, Movable Type and Typepad.
In addition, if you are a web designer or company who needs assistance in making your web sites more accessible, standards-compliant, and leaner, please give us a shout - perhaps we can help you to make that transition. We even wrote a book about it.
If you wish to establish a distinctive professional and above all, useful presence on the World Wide Web, please let us know how we can help you.
We offer the following onsite workshops and training programs. Past training clients include the U.S. Government Printing Office; the Internal Revenue Service; the Bundesgrenzchutz in Bonn, Germany; and the Zurich Financial Group. (See our clients page for more.) All programs are available in English and German.
Our 3-day programs consists of the following: 2 initial days in a row, plus 1 follow-up day several weeks later on a date set at your convenience, for brush-up and discussing problems and issues specific to your company.
Currently we offer the following 3-day training programs.
For this course specially geared to busy professionals, a knowledge of HTML and HTML forms is helpful, as is a basic understanding of Adobe Acrobat. Knowledge of JavaScript, or another programming or scripting language such as Perl, VBScript, or PHP is a big plus.
Prerequisites: A basic knowledge of Adobe Acrobat, and a basic-to-intermediate knowledge of Javascript and/or knowledge of another object-oriented programming language such as Java, C++, et. al. This is an excellent followup to the Practical Online PDF program listed above, and it is possible to directly combine these two programs.
We also offer 1-day training programs in the following categories.
Prerequisite: a solid knowledge of both Javascript and Acrobat Forms. This is a great follow-up training day for our Interactive PDF 3-day program.
A form is a form - but is it? This program teaches you how to make the most of your HTML forms, to ensure that the data collected is as clean as possible. Prerequisites: a knowledge of HTML. A knowledge of JavaScript and CSS is very useful. Basic knowledge of XML concepts is useful but not required.
Based on your needs we can put together a training program tailored to your company’s needs. This is the most cost-efficient offer we have, because it will take into account your specific needs.
We periodically conduct seminars and workshops at conferences in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. Please consult the News page for a current schedule.
We work closely with the following companies on various projects.
SilverWind, Inc. is the representative for our PDFFolio product in North America, and we are partnering for consulting and development projects.
Design, development and implementation of Smart PDF solutions for forms, disc interfaces and other applications.
Implementing server-based forms solutions using the various products by Appligent.
Implementing forms solutions using the various products by Adobe
Providing trainings and workshops organized by essociates Group
Providing trainings and workshops organized by DigiPub Solutions Corp.
Cooperating on database publishing projects
Evangelizing and providing professional services around the UltraForms® technology, allowing the instantaneous creation of 2D barcodes in PDF documents.