Q:
Origin item: 05378,998,624
Topic thread:
Printer Systems (PRINT - NA/ATS)
PSF/AIX
PRINT XPSF6000
Customer is using PSF for AIX in a SAP environment. The goal of the
project is to capture SAP output in OTF format, including images (BMP)
export them to the outside world using Access Method Z in SAP, use
SAP2AFP to convert them to AFP, upload them to MVS for final printing.
Unfortunately, customer tells us that until now, they did not succeed
in printing the images. So my question is whether or not the SAP2AFP
conversion within PSF for AIX can handle images ?
If so, could you please specify in details how it works, and what needs
to be done ?
If not, would an upgrade to Infoprint Manager be an answer ?
The alternative would be to use PCL within SAP and convert that to
AFP, resulting in huge files, and network problems.
Thanks in advance
A:
The developer confirms that the image support in the sap2afp transform
is in Infoprint Manager only and will not be retrofitted to PSF/AIX.
I'd recommend that you check the Infoprint Manager web pages on the
www.printers.ibm.com site for the available information on this
capability, then please feel free to reopen this item with any
additional questions.
Thanks for using ViewBlue.
Q:
I do have an additional question on the sap2afp transform within
Infoprint Manager. I found an item in retain referring to a PTF for
Infoprint Manager version 3.1, adding TIFF format files to the
SAP transform utility. By using the RD command in SAP, TIFF files
can now be converted to IOCA segments by our transform.
But what about other image formats like BMP ? Are other images formats
possible, and if so, can we handle them ? Were any of these conversions
available prior to the above mentioned PTF for Infoprint Manager V3.1 ?
Thanks for letting me know ...
A:
What version of SAP R/3 are they using?
Q:
The customer tried with SAP 3.0.F and 3.1.I.
A:
OTF R(aw)D(ata) image support is available in Infoprint Manager 3.1.
Raw Data is uncompressed bitmap image representation. SAP R/3 internally
converts the image formats that they support to a numeric representation
before passing it to external programs such as sap2afp.
The reason I asked which version of SAP R/3 is because there are two
different levels of OTF:
- SAP R/3 release 3 produces OTF Version 1 ("native OTF"). In
"native OTF", which is used by spool exit I and IBMAFP etc., you
get pure binary data in RD command; that's the actual R/3-internal
representation.
- SAP R/3 release 4 produces OTF Version 2. In SAPGOF, where no
binary data is allowed by the definition of SAPGOF character sets,
the binary data in RD is represented in hexadecimal representation.
When Infoprint Manager V3.1 first became available, sap2afp only
supported RD image in OTF V2 from SAP R/3 release 4. However, support
has now been added (through a PTF) for image in OTF V1 from SAP R/3
release 3.
The image created by sap2afp is G4 compressed IOCA.
As far as what types of image data sap2afp supports, the answer is that
by the time SAP passes the image data to us in the OTF file, they have
already converted it to either binary (OTF V1) or hexadecimal (OTF V2)
data (as described above). So sap2afp does not see the original image
format, whether it be TIFF or BMP or other; sap2afp only receives binary
or hexadecimal representations of that image from SAP R/3.
So with Infoprint Manager V3.1 with current PTFs, your customer should
be able to print image data in OTF from their SAP R/3 version 3 system.
Thanks for using ViewBlue.
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:
psf/6000 psf/aix infoprint ipmgr sap otf image tiff bmp print sap2afp
RD IOCA
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000156130 ITEM: RTA000156130
Dated: 04/1999 Category: XPSF6000
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