-----Tom Duerbusch wrote: ----- >I've asked before but now I know more about what I'm talking about >(if you can believe that <G>). > >We are at a conversion point. Our CICS print output was being coded >to a hardware box (IDATA box). And those are going away. The new >printers that are wanted, are IP printers and the IDATA box was used >with coax attached printers. > >Apparently, we manually designed printout using PCL code. > >That is, after sending down a setup string, the program would also >send orders like: > >1. Print this string using this font. >2. Make the next letter 20 point. >3. Go back to normal pitch and print the next few lines. >4. Change to red, change the font, change the pitch and print the >amount. >5. etc. > >Counting thru this sample program, there are 50+ changes in output, >based on the number of times we output PCL code. > >So, I was wondering....in the 21st century, there must be a better >way. I'm thinking something that would take a base report, insert >"code" into it and print it. Take all that crap out of the >application program. I'm not tied to a PDF format. The bad part >about PDF output is you need a print server to print the output.
The groff text formatter is free, and included in many Linux distributions. The formatter is built around a macro processor, and the exact input syntax depends on the choice of macro package. The macro package I am most familiar with uses a line starting with '.P' to indicate a paragraph break and a line starting with '.H' to indicate a heading. If your application program was re-written to produce groff input, the reports would still contain formatting information, but this information would be stated in terms of document structure rather than printer internals. The groff formatter is packaged with device drivers for a number of different output data streams, including PostScript and PCL. It will not produce PDF directly, but there are open source utilities available to convert PostScript output to PDF. >The new printers don't seem to be "pdf" printers that can handle PDF >internally, and if I can keep from having to buy print servers, so >much the better. > >But then, I could see a Windows box being a development box, that, >using the GUI, can make forms design much easier to do and then have >the resulting output "loaded" on a print server. > >A zLinux solution would be the easiest. Even of the product cost >something, I could do a proof of concept during the free trial >period. Perhaps even use Linux to print the PDF files. I expect the >load to be about 2,000 pages a day, a page at a time across a couple>dozen printers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
