Printing PDF Stream Files to an IPDS or ASCII Laser Printer that Does Not Support Direct PDF Printing

This document provides information on printing PDF files that are stored in the Integrated File System (IFS) to IPDS or ASCII laser printers that do not support Direct PDF printing.

If printing to an ASCII laser printer that supports Direct PDF printing, please refer to the following document instead:

N1014574: Printing PDF Stream Files to an ASCII Laser Printer that Supports Direct PDF Printing

These instuctions use the Transform Manager or PCL/PS/PDF to AFP Transform portion of Infoprint Server (product 5722IP1 feature code 5101) to convert PDF to AFPDS, and also use the AFPDS to PDF portion of Infoprint Server (product 5722IP1 feature code 5050) to respool the AFPDS to an *AFPDS spooled file in an output queue.

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 30 October 2014.
 

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Infoprint Server FC5050 and FC5101 Must be Installed and Licensed

Infoprint Server FC5050 (the AFP to PDF Transform) and FC5101 (Transform Manager or the PCL/PS/PDF to AFP Transform) must both be installed and licensed for these instructions to work. It is also recommended that you install the latest recommended fixes for both Print and Infoprint Server, starting with the latest Print Group PTF:
 

PTF Number	Licensed Program	Version	Description
SF99766	5770SS1	V7R2M0	7.2 Print Group PTF
SF99366	5770SS1	V7R1M0	7.1 Print Group PTF
SF99356	5761SS1	V6R1M0	6.1 Print Group PTF
SF99347	5722SS1	V5R4M0	5.4 Print Group PTF

Configuring a *PSFCFG Object and *LAN IPDS DEVD to use both Transform Manager and Infoprint Server

As stated above, these instuctions use the Transform Manager or PCL/PS/PDF to AFP Transform portion of Infoprint Server (product 5722IP1 feature code 5101) to convert PDF to AFPDS, and also use the AFPDS to PDF portion of Infoprint Server (product 5722IP1 feature code 5050) to respool the AFPDS to an *AFPDS spooled file in an output queue.

To configure a PSF configuration (*PSFCFG) object and *LAN IPDS printer device description to use both Transform Manager and Infoprint Server, do the following:
 

1	Use the Create PSF Configuration (CRTPSFCFG) command to create a PSFCFG object that has the Generate PDF output (PDFGEN) parameter set to *STMF, the PDF device emulation type (PDFDEVTYPE) parameter set to *IP40300, the Save AFP data (AFPSAVE) parameter set to *YES and the AFP output queue (AFPOUTQ) parameter set to the output queue that you want to use to store the resulting *AFPDS spooled files. For example: CRTPSFCFG  PSFCFG(QGPL/PDF2AFP) IPDSPASTHR(*NO) PDFGEN(*STMF)            PDFDEVTYPE(*IP40300) PDFDIR('/directory-path-name')            AFPSAVE(*YES) AFPOUTQ(QUSRSYS/printer-outq-name) Note: The PDF directory (PDFDIR) parameter is also used to specify a PDF directory. However, no PDF stream file will be generated due to special settings in the printer file.
2	Use the Create Device Desc (Printer) (CRTDEVPRT) command to create a *LAN IPDS printer device description that specifies a unique value for the Port number (PORT) parameter, specifies a value of *IMGC02 (IPDS 300-dpi printer) or *IMGC03 (IPDS 600-dpi printer) for the Image configuration (IMGCFG) parameter, that specifies '127.0.0.1' (the LOOPBACK or LOCALHOST IP address) for the Remote location (RMTLOCNAME), and that specifies the PSFCFG object created in Step 1 in the User-defined object (USRDFNOBJ) parameter. For example: CRTDEVPRT  DEVD(PDF2AFP)  DEVCLS(*LAN)  TYPE(*IPDS)  MODEL(0)            LANATTACH(*IP) AFP(*YES) PORT(unique-port-number)            ONLINE(*YES)  FONT(11)  FORMFEED(*AUTOCUT)  IMGCFG(*IMGC03)            RMTLOCNAME('127.0.0.1')  USRDFNOBJ(QGPL/PDF2AFP *PSFCFG) Note: The Image configuration (IMGCFG) is required to have Transform Manager convert *USERASCII spooled files containing PCL, PostScript (PS) or PDF to AFPDS, and the Save AFP data (AFPSAVE) and AFP output queue (AFPOUTQ) parameters in the PSFCFG object are used to have Infoprint Server respool the AFPDS print data to the output queue for your IPDS or ASCII laser printer.
3	Use the following Vary Configuration (VRYCFG) command to vary on the PDF2AFP printer device description: VRYCFG CFGOBJ(PDF2AFP) CFGTYPE(*DEV) STATUS(*ON)
4	Use the following Start Print Writer (STRPRTWTR) command to start a printer writer for the PDF2AFP printer device description: STRPRTWTR DEV(PDF2AFP)
5	Use the following Start Transform Manager (STRTFMMGR) command to start the Transform Manager, which is a part of the Infoprint Server for iSeries product (5722IP1): STRTFMMGR Note: There are no parameters for the Start Transform Manager (STRTFMMGR) command.

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

Once you have a *PSFCFG object and a *LAN IPDS DEVD that use Transform Manager to convert PCL/PS/PDF to AFPDS and to respool the AFPDS to an output queue, 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, 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, and the User Defined Data (USRDFNDTA) parameter will need to be set to 'AFPRESPOOL(*NOPRINT)' so the AFPDS print data will be respooled to an output queue without printing the original spooled file. For example: CRTPRTF FILE(QGPL/PDF2AFP) DEV(PDF2AFP) DEVTYPE(*USERASCII)         PAGESIZE(11 8.5 *UOM) LPI(6) CPI(10) OVRFLW(60)         TEXT('Convert PCL/PS/PDF to AFPDS') PAGRTT(0) OUTQ(*DEV)         USRDTA('AFPrespool') USRDFNDTA('AFPRESPOOL(*NOPRINT)') 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: NOTE:  The following commands are valid when FTPing from IBM i.  namefmt 1 is not valid when FTPing from Windows. 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 afp2pdf.file