How the Major Parts Work:

The diagram below shows how the major parts of OTS work together.
Typically you start the OTS-GUI, load a blank tax-form template, and fill in the fields that apply to you. Then you save your filled-in tax-input file to a meaningful name of your choice. When you click the Compute Taxes button, the corresponding tax-program is run on your saved tax-file. It produces a result-file with the same name, but ending in _out.txt. If you click the Fill-out PDF Forms button, a PDF-Modifier program is run on your result-file, along with MetaData and PDF-data files corresponding to the form, to produce a filled-out PDF form file containing your tax results on the government form(s).

If you do not use the GUI method, you would edit and save the tax-input file with your favorite text-editor, and then you would run the same programs on it without using the GUI. Of course many people use a combination of the two methods. For example, you could start with the GUI, and then switch to text-editor and command-line. You can always see the commands issued by the GUI in your text-window. You can give the same commands from a command-line.

How the Core Text-based Program Works:

An alternative to using the GUI, is to enter your input numbers directly in a commented text file, and then process your text file with the TaxSolve program. Blank starting text-templates exist for each tax program under the tax_form_files directories. (The GUI uses the same templates, and processes the text-file in the same way, when you press the Compute Taxes button.) When you process the text file with OTS, it produces output to the screen, and a   _out.txt   file, showing what you should enter on each line.

Example-1:

	cd tax_form_files/US_Fed
	gedit fed1040_2012.txt
	  {Enter your numbers, income, interest, etc..}

	../../bin/taxsolve_usa_fed1040_2012  fed1040_2012.txt
	  {Runs tax program. View output lines, or print output file fed1040_2012_out.txt.}
	  {Then copy numbers onto your tax forms, and mail them.}
Example-2:
	../../bin/taxsolve_usa_fed1040_2012  my_03_fed_tax.txt 
	more my_03_fed_tax_out.txt
	   {View the results.}
	lpr my_03_fed_tax_out.txt
	   {Print the results.}
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