Printing and finishing large documents on LAN-based printers

A large production printing company uses a text-processing program, such as DCF, to create large, complex manuals. It then uses LAN-based printers, such as the InfoPrint 2000, to print and finish the manuals. This company is very concerned that the manuals it creates do not have any duplicate or missing pages.

Here is how this company can use PSF for z/OS® and its related products to print the company’s manuals:

1. A user prepares a manual with DCF and formats the files for printing.
2. The user downloads the document to a workstation system and, by using the viewer application of AFP Workbench, displays the document before sending it to the printer.
3. The user submits the print files from DCF to the JES spool with a form definition that specifies finishing.
4. JES selects the print job to be printed by PSF. PSF then transmits the print files to the selected printer on the TCP/IP LAN. The printer notifies PSF through IPDS about any errors that are encountered while printing. If the documented operational procedures are followed, PSF’s error recovery capabilities ensure that each page is printed and not duplicated.

Figure 7 shows how PSF directs the data to LAN-based printers.

Figure 7. Printing documents on LAN-based printers