ITEM: BF2798L

Printing GL to a 3116 printer.

Question:

4.1.3 NEEDS ASSISTANCE SETTING UP PRINT QUEUE

Response:

   Env: AIX 4.1.3
        Model 950
        3116 printer

   Desc: Having problem printing GL file. It is coming up as 
        ascii. It will print one page of the file, when the
        escape sequence is place in the file, escape &l1 O.

ACT:
 This action taken 3/25.
 Recap:
 The customer is trying to print gl file to his 3116 printer by
 including a \\33%0B and a \\33&l1O, which rotates the page and tells
 the printer that it is a gl file.  If the customer puts these
 escape sequences in the file itself then it prints fine.  But the
 customer can't do this and would like to add this to the virtual
 printer so that the queue does it.

 We tried putting the first sequence in the ci attribute of the
 generic gl printer.  This did the rotation but printed the gl language
 as text.  So we know the rotation works.  We tried the one that
 sets the printer in gl mode and when we sent the job it took a
 long time to print.  It did print but not the header page. 
 We tried sending the job without the header page and it printed
 right away.  (All this after test several different ways).  We then
 tried combining the two commands together and it would complain about
 the % sign.  We eventually had to use the following string to get
 it to work:
Name    Description                                          Value
ci      Command To Initialize the Printer            \\33&l1O\\33\\0450B  

This worked as long as we didn't send the header page.  There is
 something in the header page that the printer doesn't like with this
 command string.

NEXT:
 Research.

Response:

A couple comments:
1/  The reason the % sign gave problems is that this is used
by the stack language as a special character.  The way to
put in a % sign is with %%  (two percent signs in a row).

2. The command ESC%0B says Enter GL/2 Language.  with a
 Note: Only single pages may be printed within GL/2.
  The command must be reissued for each page.

3.  Gl is Entered from PCL 5 emulation mode, so this needs
to be done from the PCL virtual printer (which I assume you
are already doing).    Or you choose the GL emulation for
something like the HPLJ-4.  Depending on which you start with
will determine how the header page is handled.

4.  The problem with putting the command in the ci attribute
is that it will get sent before the header page as well.  If the
header page is a PCL page this could cause problems.

The 3116 colon files can be downloaded from 
  ftp://services.software.ibm.com/printers/drivers/3116.  They
  are in zip format so one needs to unpack them.  They do not
 include a GL colon file, so I would go ahead and use HPLJ-4
 and choose the GL option.  Or change the header file in
  the 3116 PCL to point at H.gl instead of H.ascii
  This is done in the sh attribute.  (I see that the HPLJ-4.gl file
  at AIX 4.1 still uses H.ascii so this may not be good advice,
  just something to try).

 The HPLJ-4.gl file 'ci' attribute ends with:
 '\\033'
  %%            % -> OUTPUT
  '1Bin;sp1;'

You will note a couple differences from what you have done.  Also
the first time the B command is issued it should be with 
ESC%1B because you want it to start at the top of the page.

It is still not clear this will handle multiple pages.  The best way to
do this may be with a filter.

Response:

Interesting thing I noted for the HPLJ-4 GL queue.  IT actually
prints the header page to a PCL queue.  Remember that the
header page get's treated separately.  This means a PCL queue
must be setup for the printer.  This is at AIX 4.1.4.  Interesting
the web these colon files weave.

Response:

ACT:
 Called customer and had him setup a pcl queue and we setup a pcl
 queue along with the already existing gl queue.  He sent the job.
 This still sat and chewed on the header page awhile, then tossed it out
 and then printed the job.  The gl queue that we are using is a 
 generic gl queue.  We then tried adding a hplj-4 gl queue and tried
 printing to it.  Same results.  I looked at the sh attribute and it
 was using the H.ascii header, so we added a hplj-4 pcl queue as
 John suggested.  This worked fine, except it was coming from the
 wrong paper drawer.  We changed the paper source, u=2, on the gl
 queue and it printed just like he wanted.  NOTE: On this queue we
 didn't need to change the ci attribute.

Thanks John.

NEXT:
 Closing item per customers consent.



Support Line: Printing GL to a 3116 printer. ITEM: BF2798L

Dated: April 1996 Category: N/A

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