RE: WSCST and IP printing

[pault@xxxxxxxxx (Paul Tykodi)]

John Earl wrote:
Had an odd thing happen today while trying to configure IP for a client.
Their AS/400 is V3R2 and the IP printer is an HP 5M with 8.5" x 11" paper.
I set up a remote outq and was able to print to it without much trouble.  But 
they have several reports that are 165 columns wide and the last 5 characters 
were being truncated.  COR is in use so the document gets landscaped and the 
cpi drops to 15, but the report won't print edge to edge (11" at 15 cpi = 165 
columns, so I'd need every bit on that paper to print this report), so I had to 
create a *WSCST.
In order to get 17cpi, I set the ASCIIFONT parameter in the *WSCST to 254.  The 
output that I got however was way too small (about 25cpi!).  Got the same 
results with ASCIIFONT 253, and even 223 (supposedly a 15cpi font).  So just to 
be sure, I retrieved the *WSCST for *HP5 and recompiled it again without any 
modifications.  Result:  25cpi.  
(BTW, I ended the writer and deleted and recreated the *WSCST for each of these 
attempts.)
So it appears that just by specifying that the outq should use a WSCST I'm 
going to get 25cpi????   
Am I missing a something obvious here?  Has anyone every seen this sort of 
behavior before?  Does anyone have an alternate method of printing 165 columnn 
reports?  (I'm not allowed to make global changes to the HP 5M, too many other 
systems use it.)
Thanks in Advance.
jte
Dear John,

Here is some basic information about the COR feature followed by a couple of 
thoughts on how to make the application print as you want.

1. When Do Changes to the CPICOR Field Get Activated?

When IBM Midrange computers were initially produced, letter quality printing 
was supported with a daisy wheel printer. The printer, known as an IBM 5219, 
could handle both green bar continuous forms paper being fed up through the 
bottom of the printer or letter and legal size paper stored in cut sheet feed 
trays. 

When IBM prepared to begin shipping their first laser printer for the Midrange 
environment (3812 model 1), they were faced with the need to support 
applications that printed on paper that was too large to be fed into a laser 
printer (green bar paper). Their answer was to create a laser printer function 
called Computer Output Reduction (COR). The feature worked much like the 
reduction feature of a copier in that it reduced an incoming report to 70% of 
full size. The form size received from the host had to be larger than LEGAL 
paper in order for the COR function to be invoked. 

All of IBM's direct twinax attach matrix printer products have a defined 
carriage width of 13.2 inches. Since this value is less than the 14 inch length 
of LEGAL paper rotated into landscape orientation, the COR feature is usually 
triggered by the page length being greater than 8.5 inches (more than 51 lines 
at 6 LPI or 68 lines at 8 LPI). The COR font and LPI substitutions are as 
follows:

Host Application Requests 10 CPI        -       Printer Uses 13.3 CPI
Host Application Requests 12 CPI        -       Printer Uses 15 CPI
Host Application Requests 15 CPI        -       Printer Uses 20 CPI
Host Application Requests 17 CPI        -       Printer Uses 27 CPI

Host Application Requests 6 LPI         -       Printer Uses 8.6   LPI
Host Application Requests 8 LPI         -       Printer Uses 11.1 LPI
Top Margin                              -       Set to 1/2 inch
Left Margin                             -       Set to 1/2 inch

The COR function is only used with fixed pitch fonts (i.e. all characters 
receive the same amount of space). It is not a good idea to map reports 
constructed with fixed pitch fonts to a proportional font. If this procedure is 
implemented; bolding, justification, and tabs may not appear as expected.

It sounds like your change to the WSCST caused the OS/400 host print transform 
application to believe that it should apply the rules of COR as if the system 
was always selecting 17 CPI to start.

The COR function is enabled/disabled by the Degree of Page Rotation field in a 
printer file. The printer file values *AUTO, and *DEVD allow the printer (or in 
the case of host print transform function - the application) to determine when 
and when not to activate COR. The printer file value *COR causes the function 
to be used on every job. Choosing a degree of rotation in the printer file (0, 
90, 180, 270) disables the COR function. One thing you could do would be to 
override the printer file creating this application and set degree of page 
rotation to 90 (landscape) and the CPI to 16.7 (or if using the font parameter 
of the printer file choose 253 or 254).

The other thing you could do would be to edit the 12 CPICOR parameter of the 
WSCST to either change it so that it requested 17 CPI or to add an HMI sequence 
after the call for 15 CPI. An HMI sequence can be used to expand/compress text 
horizontally. 

The height of the characters used by the HP 5 is directly related to the CPI 
requested. Thus 15 CPI characters will be slightly taller than 17 CPI 
characters. If you like the height of 15, use an HMI sequence to space the text 
at 17 CPI. If height doesn't matter, reprogram the sequence to call for 17 CPI.

HMI is calculated as <available print area in inches>/<characters desired per 
line> multiplied by 120. Since you are working with COR, your left margin is 
automatically being set to 1/2 inch. The standard unprintable margin of the HP 
printer is 1/4 inch on both the left and right side of the paper. Therefore the 
COR margin plus the right side unprintable margin means you can print on 10.25 
of the 11 inches in landscape orientation. The HMI calculation would be 
10.25/165 * 120 = 7.45. The PCL command would then be 1B 26 6B 37 2E 34 35 48. 

HTH

/Paul
--
Paul Tykodi, Technical Director                 E-mail: pault@praim.com
Praim Inc.                                           Tel: 603-431-0606
140 Congress St., #2                                Fax: 603-436-6432
Portsmouth, NH  03801-4019


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