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Where to learn printing possibilities ?

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  • Where to learn printing possibilities ?

    Peter,
    I've been using a product called Create!Print for 12 years now and can tell you that it's probably the best forms printing solution available for the AS/400 platform. The forms design is accomplished on the PC without the need for any program changes on the AS/400. The forms are then uploaded to the AS/400 and printing of the forms and data are done directly to the printer without any PC involvement.
    I like this product so much that I've purchased it 3 times in the last 12 years for 3 different employers. Each time I purchased this product I started by looking over the list of products available (COMMON is a good place to start) and try to find something better. As you can imagine, having used a form printing product since 1989 I have a lot of experience and know what I want. Each time Create!Print comes out on top.
    One of the reasons it's the best is that they use their own writer on the AS/400 (not IBMs) and thus only have to make one pass over the data. Almost all other products make two passes over the data to merge the form. The other benefit is that they use Postscript to send the data and form to the printer. Postscript is much more compact than PCL and more robust.
    Create!Print charges a base price of $4,500 for the package plus a cost per printer base on the printer's PPM rate. We are doing exactly what you are doing. Ihave HP 4100dtn and 8100dtn products connected via LAN to the AS/400 via TCP/IP. These printers are reasonably fast (for our purposes) and the software pushes them at full rated speed.
    Give Create!Print a look see at www.e4m.com.
    Chuck
    "Peter Franken" <peter_franken@cargill.com> wrote in message news:1dd16369.-1@WebX.WawyahGHajS...
    We are using AS400 printing in a very limited form. Only plain lists and some forms which are handled by Xerox XDPE and printed on twinax connected Xerox 4220 machines. We want to switch to printing forms with overlays, logos and duplex text using native AS400 capabilities. (Now on V3R2M0 switching only in a year to V4R4M0). The target printer is a HP4100DTN connected over IP to the AS400. The connection is in place, outqueue setup and a HP5Si WSCST file used. We're looking for some good examples or possibly a 'AS400 advanced printing for dummies' book or website. Who can help us start in the good direction ? The redbooks seem to be too abstract and still expect too much choices to be made about stuff we're not experience enough in. Thanks in advance, Peter


  • #2
    Where to learn printing possibilities ?

    Thanks for your quick reply Chuck. However we are initially looking for a way to do this with basic OS400 functionality. Can you tell me if this is possible in any way ? The XDPE Xerox package we have now is also intended to be used with a design package but we have allways found a way by manually tweaking and copying PCL code files to get the layout of the forms right. Of course these form are very simple and will not compare in any way to the stuff you can create with Create!Print. A product we are also looking to is FormScape. Do you know how this compares to Create!print ? The reason for our hesitation with buying one of these products is that we will be consolidating to a central machine (V4R4M0) from several different sites later this year. This central machine must be kept as clean as possible since most 3rd party sw tends to be charged against the machine's performance. Which could become quite costly. Also we have been reading that AFP with IBM PSF and ClientAccess would give us much of the desired capabilities. We just can't get this verified or demonstrated. And also, we have an operational issue right now with the Xerox hardware which urges us to get a solution now on our V3R2M0 machine. Thanks, Peter Netherlands

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    • #3
      Where to learn printing possibilities ?

      Peter, I use the native AS/400 printing capabilities with forms overlays. It is really easy to set up. The only consideration is that you need an AFP capable printer (I'm not sure if yours is or not), and PSF/400. Once the printer and PSF are in place, the creation of overlays is quite simple: 1) I create the document overlay shell on the PC and print to an AFP type printer (in Client Access, you can add this printer). When you specify print, print to a file in a folder on the AS/400. 2) I run this CL on the 400 (there is alot more to it, but that in internal housekeeping stuff) CRTOVL: CPYFRMPCD FROMFLR(OVERLAYS) TOFILE(OVERLAY/OVERLAY) - FROMDOC(SrcDoc) TOMBR(OverlayName) TRNTBL(*NONE) TRNFMT (*NOTEXT) CRTOVL OVL(OVERLAY/OverlayName) FILE(OVERLAY/OVERLAY) TEXT(TextDesc) REPLACE (*YES) attaches the overlay to the back side of the paper CHGPRTF FILE(OVERLAY/PrintFileName) DEVTYPE(*AFPDS) BACKOVL (OVERLAY/OverlayName) or attaches one to the front.... CHGPRTF FILE(OVERLAY/PrintFileName) DEVTYPE(*AFPDS) FRONTOVL (OVERLAY/OverlayName) 3) when I print, I use the printfile specified and the overlay comes out on the printer. 4) also, you need to specify AFP *yes on the printer itself... anyway, thats basically how I am doing it. You can install PSF/400 on a try and buy basis (good for 70 days) to experiment with this process. Hope it makes sense and helps you out.... Ron

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      • #4
        Where to learn printing possibilities ?

        Hi Ron, Thanks for the input. One small question. Do you use PSF/400 on a V3 machine and if not, do you know what the minimal requirements are for it. We would like to use it on V3R2M0 for at least a few months before switching to a V4R4M0 machine. Thanks, Peter

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        • #5
          Where to learn printing possibilities ?

          We are using AS400 printing in a very limited form. Only plain lists and some forms which are handled by Xerox XDPE and printed on twinax connected Xerox 4220 machines. We want to switch to printing forms with overlays, logos and duplex text using native AS400 capabilities. (Now on V3R2M0 switching only in a year to V4R4M0). The target printer is a HP4100DTN connected over IP to the AS400. The connection is in place, outqueue setup and a HP5Si WSCST file used. We're looking for some good examples or possibly a 'AS400 advanced printing for dummies' book or website. Who can help us start in the good direction ? The redbooks seem to be too abstract and still expect too much choices to be made about stuff we're not experience enough in. Thanks in advance, Peter

          Comment


          • #6
            Where to learn printing possibilities ?

            Peter, I'm at v4r4, I don't know if there is a version for V3 or not. There is more information at IBM books(http://publib.boulder.ibm.com) , specifically in one called "AS/400 Guide to AFP and PSF" in section 9.2.4 "Printing the OVERLAY to an AFP File". Now, I use *IPDS capable printers, but I'm not sure if this is required. I do know that AFP is required, and you will need to create a PSFCFG object that looks kind of like this: Change PSF Configuration (CHGPSFCFG) Type choices, press Enter. PSF configuration . . . . . . . > PrinterName Name Library . . . . . . . . . . . > OVERLAY Name, *LIBL, *CURLIB User resource library list . . . *JOBLIBL *SAME, *JOBLIBL, *CURLIB... Device resource library list . . *DFT Name, *SAME, *DFT + for more values IPDS pass through . . . . . . . *YES *SAME, *NO, *YES Activate release timer . . . . . *NORDYF *NORDYF, *IMMED... Release timer . . . . . . . . . *SEC15 1-1440, *NOMAX, *SEC15... Restart timer . . . . . . . . . *IMMED 1-1440, *IMMED, *SAME APPC and TCP/IP retry count . . 15 1-99, *SAME, *NOMAX Delay between APPC retries . . . 90 0-999, *SAME Automatic session recovery . . . *NO *SAME, *NO, *YES Acknowledgment frequency . . . . 100 1-32767, *SAME Text 'description' . . . . . . . 'text description(AFP) ' and then attach the PSFCFG object to the printer this way: Type choices, press Enter. User-defined object: Object . . . . . . . . . . . . PSFCONFName Name, *SAME, *NONE Library . . . . . . . . . . OVERLAY Name, *LIBL, *CURLIB Object type . . . . . . . . . *PSFCFG *DTAARA, *DTAQ, *FILE Data transform program . . . . . *NONE Name, *SAME, *NONE Also, be sure that you have Advanced Function Printing set to *YES. Like I said before, I'm not sure if *IPDS is required, but AFP is...and I seem to remember hearing somewhere that you can turn on AFP for certain kinds of printers that are not IPDS... Ron

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