Re: lp5250 fonts & page alignement

[Scott Klement <tn5250@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> My problem is different... I can't set anything on AS400. I'm trying to 
> port some workstations to linux, but print settings on AS400 are 
> untouchables. I need to set printing condition (if possible) with 
> lp5250d.
In order to do that, you'll have to stop using env.IBMMFRTYPMDL, since 
that keyword tells the AS/400 to do the transformation to the printer 
language -- and you say you can't change anything on the AS/400. 
Personally I think this is a mistake -- you should discuss this with the 
AS/400 administrator, perhaps showing him/her my previous e-mail (or a 
translation) because it provides a great deal more flexibility.
If you really can't do it that way, then you'll have to do it without 
env.IBMMFRTYPMDL.  If you don't use that keyword, then the printouts won't 
be transformed on the AS/400, and you can do all of the work on the Linux 
box.
It's important to understand that lp5250d is only a communication daemon. 
It communicates with the AS/400, and downloads the printout from the spool 
still in it's original SCS format. It does no transformation of that data 
itself.
For each spooled file it downloads, lp5250d will launch a new Linux 
process, and open a pipe to that process (it uses the popen() function to 
do this). It'll use the pipe to send the SCS data. The command/program 
that it runs in the new process is defined by the outputcommand 
configuration keyword.
For example, I might do this:

    lp5250d outputcommand="scs2ascii|lpr" env.DEVNAME=PRT01 as400

This tells lp5250d that (for each report it downloads) it should open a 
pipe to program named scs2ascii.  scs2ascii will convert the document from 
SCS format to an ASCII text file. The output from scs2ascii is 
subsequently piped to the lpr command, which puts it in the Unix print 
queue.
You can specify anything you like for this output command. You could even 
write a shell script or program that makes big changes to the document 
before sending it to the printer.
For example, you might use the enscript tool (which should be easy to find 
for Linux) to make some transformations on the data.  You could do the 
following:
outputcommand="scs2ascii|enscript --no-header -p- -q -fCourier-Bold@10/12|lpr 
-Pps4"

(sorry if the preceding line wrapped -- it should all be one line)

This tells lp5250d to convert the SCS data to plain ASCII text, and pipe 
the ASCII text to the enscript program.  Enscript converts the document to 
PostScript.  The postscript that's written out will print the document 
with the Courier-Bold font, 10 points wide, and 12 points high.
The output from enscript is sent to the printer via LPR, and I've included 
the switch -Pps4 to tell it which print queue to use.  Of course,if you 
didn't want it to print, you don't have to use LPR. You can just redirect 
the stream to a file. Or to /bin/mail if you want to e-mail it.  Whatever 
you want to do...
Of course the output from enscript is PostScript rather than PCL, so if 
your printers don't understand PostScript, you'll want to configure Linux 
so that the print spooler automatically converts PostScript documents to 
PCL for that printer.  (You'll want that for other things as well, since 
almost all Linux software writes printer output in PostScript)
There's also a tool called scs2pdf that's included with tn5250.  You can 
use that in lieu of scs2ascii if you want the output in PDF format instead 
of plain ASCII text.