Electronic Printing Systems – AFP

Advanced Function Presentation (AFP ) is a collection of programs to extend the capabilities of printers. The programs are used in conjunction with IBM ‘s all-points-addressable (APA) printers. AFP allows users to place data not just at the line and character positions, but at any addressable point on the page. For OTech ‘s AFP printers, this is 240-points, or dots-per-inch (dpi). Other AFP printers print at 300 and 480-dpi resolution. Users’ local coax-attached printers currently printing under VPS can also be configured to print in AFP mode. The types of data you can do this with include:

• Proportionally spaced (typographic) and fixed spaced fonts of various sizes and styles
• Graphic images (line art, business graphics, and photographs, including SAS /Graph and PC graphics output)
• Logos
• Signatures
• Electronically-designed forms (overlays)

You can mix these data types on a single page, and orient them in different directions on the page. Page printers differ from line printers in that a page printer receives a complete page of data before printing any data, whereas a line printer receives one line of data at a time, printing each line as it is received. However, the AFP printers can process line data as well as page data so that existing jobs can print on a page printer with little or no change to the application. You can enhance the printing of line data by using electronic forms, typographic fonts, and graphics. There are two-page presentation modes an AFP printer user must be aware of, and four print directions. They are summarized below:

• Page Presentation: Can be either portrait or landscape.
• Portrait: The position of a printed sheet that has its short edges at the top and bottom.
• Landscape: The position of a printed sheet that has its long edges as the top and bottom.
• Print Direction: The direction in which text characters are added to a line in reference to page origin. They are: Across, Down, Back, Up

Each print direction is rotated 90 degrees clockwise from the prior direction. A printer’s page origin, also known as media origin, and its relation to page presentation and print direction is dependent on the printer being used and is described in more detail in the next section, OTech ‘s AFP Printers.

All output that is generated from the z Systems that needs to be printed is routed to our outsourced printing vendor (EDD). For those customers who wish to print their output, they must have an exception request on file with OTech. The following is required:

• All exceptions must indicate an account code
• A job name
• A brief explanation of why hardcopy reports are necessary.

Once the exemption request is received, OTech will proceed in exempting the indicated reports. The exemption process is listed below:

Exemption Process

1. The Customer will open a Service Desk Ticket and address it as Go-Online Exemption.
2. The Service Desk Ticket will state it is an exemption from Customer and it will list the Jobname and the Account Code for each job that the customer wants to exempt.
3. The Service Desk Team will forward the Service Desk ticket to the CIO Output Management Group and they will log it and make the necessary changes.
4. Customers will be notified that their exemption has been approved and implemented.

CDT contracts with the Employment Development Department (EDD) Print Facility in West Sacramento for printing. EDD supports AFP Continuous Form and Xerox cut-sheet output.

The following list identifies the forms the EDD Print Facility supply and support:

• Cut-sheet paper can print on a single side of the page (simplex) or on both sides (duplex); and
• Continuous form, or “fan-fold” paper can print only on a single side of the page (simplex). The output is described in more detail below.
• EDD does not support Impact print

In addition, the Xerox printer, a high-speed printer, can print in AFP mode with some restrictions.

Resources are a collection of printing instructions and sometimes data. They are stored in libraries at the host computer and are called for as needed and sent to the printer along with the data to be printed. Resources include: Fonts – The collection of characters of a specific style and size, to be used to print the data. This can include signature fonts. Page Definitions (Pagedefs) – The instructions for formatting a logical page of data. Information includes the print direction, number of lines to print on the page, and print density (lines-per-inch). Form Definitions (Formdefs) – Describes the physical page. Information includes the print. Electronic Forms (Overlays) – Instructions on printing predefined data such as lines, boxes, shading, text, or graphics, that can be merged with variable data on a sheet while printing. Page Segments – Sections of predefined data that can be merged with other data on a sheet.

Resource names follow specific naming conventions. They are 1-6 character names, preceded by a 2-character prefix. In most instances, when the resource is requested the prefix is omitted; however, there are exceptions. As an example, the font named X0GT10 would be requested in JCL with CHARS=GT10, but in the SCRIPT CHARS option resource’s prefix is listed below in the detailed description for that resource.

CDT Libraries containing AFP resources are as follows:

OTech Libraries containing AFP resources are as follows:

In addition, users may create their own resource libraries for testing resources or for resources with security requirements. To use such a library in a print job, include the USERLIB parameter on the OUTPUT JCL statement.

User generated resource libraries will be named ‘SY.AFP.XX.last-qualifier-node’. The ‘XX’ is the Agency Code for the respective State agency (see example below for the Department of General Services).

NOTE: SY.AFP.XX.AFPLIB – User-generated whereby ‘XX’ is the Agency Code for the respective State agency

In addition, users may create their own resource libraries for testing resources or for resources with security requirements. To use such a library in a print job, include the USERLIB parameter on the OUTPUT JCL statement.

User generated resource libraries will be named ‘SY.AFP.XX.last-qualifier-node’. The ‘XX’ is the Agency Code for the respective State agency (see example below for the Department of General Services).

The form definition (formdef) is required for all print jobs. It specifies how the physical sheet of paper is handled. In its simplest form it specifies:

• Where the logical page is to be placed on the physical page
• For cutsheet only, whether output is to be printed on one side (simplex) or both sides (duplex or tumble)
• For fanfold only, the page origin may be defined with the page presentation and print direction parameters.

Additionally the formdef can specify:

• Number of copies of each page to be printed
• The bin from which paper is to be selected (cutsheet only)
• Names of electronic forms, or overlays , to be printed on front or back
• Data fields to be suppressed from printing

A formdef is made up of one or more copy groups, also known as medium maps. The user can change copy groups from page to page. How to do this is explained below.

The prefix for formdefs is F1. The name of a copy group may be any 1-8 character name, but traditionally is the same as the form definition, prefixed by F2.

Formdefs are designated in user’s JCL with the FORMDEF parameter of the OUTPUT JCL statement.

If no formdef is specified in user’s JCL , the default for the printer is used.

Page Segments are collections of predefined data that can be merged with other data on a page when the page is printed. They generally are used to print signatures or logos.

The prefix for Page Segments is traditionally S1. This prefix is required if the segment is being used in an overlay; it may be any valid member name when called by user’s print data or DCF.

The Page Segments available at CDT for general use currently consist of multiple sizes of the State Seal and CDT Logo. They are listed in the dataset SYS2.AFP .USER.DOCUMENT, member PAGESEGS. They are all IM images. Most are at 240 dpi, but a few are at 300 dpi.

Page Segments may be created in various ways, and they may be purchased from many font vendors. At CDT, SASi /Graph (using the GDDM interface) can create Page Segments for inclusion in other documents, or GDDM can create Page Segments directly from vector graphics created within GDDM . Small graphics created from some PC software can also be converted to Page Segments using GDDM . Other PC software is available that will directly create Page Segments from PCX, BMP or TIFF formatted bitmaps (output of scanners and other PC software).