Printing PDF Stream Files to an ASCII Laser Printer that Supports Direct PDF Printing

Resolving The Problem

This document provides information on printing PDF files that are stored in the Integrated File System (IFS) to ASCII laser printers that support Direct PDF printing.

This document discusses two methods for sending PDF print data to a Direct PDF-capable laser printer:

o	Using Binary FTP to Generate *USERASCII Spooled Files that Contain PDF
o	Using Binary FTP to Send PDF Directly to a Printer

The PDF stream files could be generated by Infoprint Server (product 5722IP1), Transform Services (product 5761TS1 or 5770TS1) or by a third-party application. For more information on generating PDF files on an IBM i system, please refer to the following document:

N1019457: Options for Generating Adobe Acrobat PDF Format Files from an IBM i System

Note: This document was last updated on 29 October 2014.

---

Using Binary FTP to Generate *USERASCII Spooled Files that Contain PDF

*LAN 3812 printer device descriptions, Remote Output Queues (RMTOUTQ) and most TN5250e printer emulation sessions (including PC5250 printer sessions with IBM i Access for Windows and 5250 Printer sessions with IBM i Access Client Solutions) can be used to send *USERASCII spooled files to an ASCII laser printer printer.

*USERASCII cannot be sent through a *LAN IPDS printer device description, so if your laser printer supports both IPDS and Direct PDF printing it is recommended that you configure a *LAN 3812 printer device description or a RMTOUTQ, in addition to your existing *LAN IPDS printer device description. For step-by-step instructions, please refer to the following documents:

N1010134: Configuring a *LAN 3812 PJL Device Description
N1019572: Configuring a *LAN 3812 SNMP Device Description
N1019375: Configuring a *LAN 3812 IPP Device Description
N1010090: Configuring a Remote Output Queue (RMTOUTQ)
N1019586: Configuring a *LAN 3812 Device Description that Uses the LPR Print Driver (TSPLPRD) Exit Program

Once you have a *LAN 3812 DEVD or RMTOUTQ that you can use to send *USERASCII spooled files to your Direct PDF-capable laser printers, you can setup to generate *USERASCII spooled files containing PDF by doing the following:

1

Create a *USERASCII printer file for each of your Direct PDF-capable printers. At a minimum, the Device (DEV) parameter will need to be set to the name of the printer device description, the Printer device type (DEVTYPE) parameter will need to be set to *USERASCII, and the Output queue (OUTQ) parameter will need to be set to *DEV, so the resulting spooled files will automatically be routed to the correct output queue. For example: CRTPRTF  FILE(QGPL/printer-file) DEV(printer-device)          DEVTYPE(*USERASCII) TEXT('Direct PDF Printing on PRT2PDF')          PAGESIZE(66 85 *ROWCOL) PAGRTT(0) OUTQ(*DEV) Note: Additionally, it is recommended that you set the Page size (PAGESIZE) pameter and Degree of page rotation (PAGRTT) parameters in case the Transform Manager portion of Infoprint Server (product 5722IP1 feature code 5101) is needed to convert the PDF to *AFPDS for an IPDS or ASCII laser printer that does not support Direct PDF printing.

2

Use Binary FTP to send the PDF stream file to the *USERASCII printer file in library QGPL. For example: FTP RMTSYS(LOCALHOST) (sign in using user profile and password) namefmt 1 bin lcd ifs-directory cd /qsys.lib/qgpl.lib put ifs-stream-file.pdf ip1464.file

---

Using Binary FTP to Send PDF Directly to a Printer

Some printers will accept Direct PDF printing via Binary FTP, without having to generate a *USERASCII spooled file on your IBM i system and send the *USERASCII spooled file using a *LAN 3812 printer device description, Remote Output Queue (RMTOUTQ) or a TN5250e printer emulation session. For example:

FTP RMTSYS(printer-host-name-or-ip-address)
(sign in using printer user ID and password)
namefmt 1
bin
lcd ifs-directory
put ifs-stream-file.pdf