PSF/AIX 3900 Postscript, job separation customization
ITEM: RTA000094692
Q:
ABSTRACT: PSF/AIX 3900 Postscript;job separation;truncation vs. wrap
SEARCH ARG: PSF/aix postscript performance
TOPIC THREAD: PRINT
AFP
PSF6000
..
I have just completed my first PSF/AIX V2.1 live customer install;
a UNIX environment, printing ASCII and POSTSCRIPT source.
I need help with a couple of issues I could not find documented.
1. We have turned on FORMS MARK on the Trailer pages. The 3 black
bars print as documented, however the operators have difficulty
seeing them, as they appear only on one page and do not overlap
on the perforation as they are accustomed to with the 3800.
Is there any workaround available..like a 2 page trailer
with forms marks on both pages...or other suggestions you
may have from real experiences/solutions.
2. In implementing the postscript transform, we are printing on
11 x 8.5 inch, (wide) paper...so our print area is really
10 long and 8.5 wide when printing in portrait mode.
In adjusting the postscript length and width values we are
cropping out tops of pages....which were probably generated
for typical 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Can I make adjustments
which will in effect crop out the bottom instead of the top
of the page...is seems there is plenty of blank space on the
bottom of the printed pages. I also found an askq item which
discussed that rescaling POSTSCRIPT is possible thru an undocumented
parm....can I use this on my backend queue specification?
Where new documents are created, we can probably make an adjustment
in the postscript driver for a smaller page to match the
3900 physical paper size.
3. Finally, we have noticed that printing postscript (these are
essentially like our product manuals, most text with some
diagrams) the printer is hesitating at about every 30 pages.
We are on a 3900-001 with PQE, so we are sending compressed
image and text to the printer. Is this an "normal" performance
situation with postscript....If not what key areas can be
addressed to improve?
Thanks.
Q:
R1) You can specify whatever formdef you want for the trailer page
through the smit panels for Show/Change, then User Exits. One thing
I would try would be to specify a formdef that calls for two or more
copies. You could also create an overlay called by that formdef
that puts marks wherever your operators want them. Or since we supply
the source code for the separator exit, another option would be to
modify that so the appearance of the separator page is as you wish.
R2) The defaults for the clipping window in the PostScript transform
are 7.78i x 10.28i, but you can override these on the command line
through the use of the -w and -l flags, or you can change the defaults
in the configuration file in /usr/lpp/psf/ps2afp/ps2afp.cfg to
8.5i x 10.0i. The best explanation of how the PostScript transform
works with image and clipping is in the Print Submission publication
in the section on "Transforming PostScript Data for Printing with PSF
for AIX". I'll have to check on the undocumented item you mentioned.
Leaving open for now.
Q:
Thanks,
The ASKQ item is dated 951018, and is the only item found with
search criteria PSF/AIX POSTSCRIPT RESCALE.
Just to clarify, on the postscript output, we have specified
width of 8.25 and length of 10 on the flags in the postscript
parameters file, as that is the most our physical paper size
will allow. My objective is to either reduce the 8.5 x 11
postscript formatted input file and print full pages slightly
scaled down, OR, crop off the bottom inch of the Postscript
formatted input instead of the top...or find out how I control
what is cropped out.
Regards.
A:
I'd like to add a few comments to the original appender's input from
the 3900 side of things.
1) Concerning the mark forms, I agree that the best way to make
the trailers more visible to the operators is to use a FORMDEF
with COPIES=3 (or 4) specified.
A good source of information on this is GA32-0135-01 (3900 Product
Description).
You can also use an undocumented Test Mode function to change the
mark forms so additional marks are placed on the page. Test Mode
80 set to 1 will move the forms mark to the left edge of the
page and print approximately 20 bars. The 3900 will still not
print across the perf as the 3800 did, but the combination of
multiple trailers and test mode 80=1 should be a great improvement.
2. The reason you are cropping off the tops of pages is due to the
difference between what Postscript sees as the page origin and
what most people think of as the origin. Most folks would think
the upper left-hand corner of the page is the origin. However,
Postscript uses Cartesian coordinates, so the origin is seen to
be the bottom left-hand corner.
Is there anyway for you to go back to the application that is
creating the Postscript? If so, the simplest thing to do is to
change the paper size in the application (make it small enough
so the data will fit on the 3900 page). You did mention this -
and I believe it is the easiest way to get proper results.
3. In terms of seeing the printer stop/start, this may happen regardless
of what you try, as you're printing pretty much full page image.
There is a 3900 performance flash on HONE that will help you
evaluate how to get optimal performance. In a nutshell, you need
to have both AFIG and DPE and a total of 6 MB pattern store on
the 3900 (which probably means adding DPE and 2 MB pattern store
to your printer), and you also would need to use the PS2AFP
transform with 240 pel G4-compressed image specified.
With the above, you can expect performance between 150 and 180 ipm -
which still means occasional stop/starts.
I'll send you the performance flash offline - it can be found on ASKQ
using '3900 Performance flash dpe' as search arguments.
Back to the original appender for follow-up.
Q:
Thanks for your comments, good input.
One new question on formatting the ASCII output.
On our dedicated line data queue, on the backend program I have
specified as in Appendix H, H.2 of the installation experiences
manual, using an IBM provided Landscape Formdef and a Pagedef
customized for LPP and font.
On MVS, when client printed line mode jobs, the 3800 print line
wrapped to the next line when jobs were submitted with longer
text than would fit on the landscape form.
With this transform on PSF/AIX, we experience truncation and not
line wrap. Is there any way to get this to line wrap instead of
truncate, so our setup mirrors what they used on the 3800 MVS
system (so I can support landscape line mode on PFS/AIX with
one logical queue definition for ASCII line data LPR clients.)
Thanks.
A:
I'm a little puzzled by your latest remarks re 3800 line mode printing -
I've never heard of a 3800 performing 'line wrap' when running in 3800-1
compatibility mode. As far as I know, if the line length exceeds the
paper width, the data is simply not printed. Are you very sure about
the line wrap occurring (it's not documented in the pubs I have and
I don't ever remember having line wrap function when I was testing
3800-1 compat mode during development of the 3800-3 - but that was
15 years ago. . .)
About the only place I've seen line wrap is with PC printers using
Proprinter emulation or PPDS (PCL truncates).
I know of no way to get line wrap using PSF.
A:
Original appender again: I will follow up with Boulder more on the
clipping although the above explanation of the Adobe PostScript
coordinate system and clipping is correct. As far as rescale, that
undocumented utility you saw mention of is hardcoded to only do
2-up, 4-up, and maybe 8-up for PostScript, and even then, it doesn't
work for all PostScript (particularly if there are imbedded images).
At any rate, since you just want a minor size reduction, this utility
will not help you.
As far as line wrapping, pagedefs just don't work that way on any
platform, including AIX. However, I was able to get line wrapping when
I submitted an ASCII flat file to PSF for AIX as Proprinter data
(either enq -Ppsf ascii.data or using template_proprinter through smit).
You may wish to consider if that will work in your environment.
See ASKQ item RTA000045567 for a similar question. Leaving open.
A:
I talked with one of the PostScript transform developers. The above
explanation of the coordinate system and clipping is correct; the
origin for PostScript is considered to be the lower left-hand corner
of the page, and the dimensions you provide on the -l and -w flags
for the PostScript transform will measure from that point, causing
the top and right hand sides to be clipped. One way around this is
to go back to the original application that generates the PostScript
and modify it so that it produces the output that you need. Another
possible alternative is to use Adobe's Acrobat product for cropping.
As far as the intermittent pause while printing, you should try
printing the job with datack=unblock. It may be that periodically
you are trying to print outside of the logical page, and are
experiencing pauses due to that. If so, see if you can correct
the application so that it no longer prints off the logical
page. Or if your formdef has offsets causing you to go off the logical
page, try changing if possible to one that uses a 0,0 offset.
I hope that helps. Thanks for your patience.
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:
AIX PSF/6000 PSF FOR AIX POSTSCRIPT PERFORMANCE FORMS MARKS CLIPPING
RESCALE 3900 psf/aix ps2afp scale scaling separator
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000094692 ITEM: RTA000094692
Dated: 05/1999 Category: XPSF6000
This HTML file was generated 2000/11/30~13:34:05
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