RE: Print RTF or XML from RPG

[Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi James,

>       Would you please explain how you got raw PS to attached printer.
>
>       I could never get it to print directly.
>
>       Had to write to IFS and then using PrintFile or Ghostscript to send
> to printer defined as text/generic.

I actually do write it to a stream file first, because I don't know at the
time that the data is generated whether it's going to be sent to the
printer or whether it's going to be e-mailed.

If it's going to be e-mailed, I use the ps2pdf utility from Ghostscript to
convert the data to a PDF document, and then I e-mail that.

If it's going to be printed, I use the following code snippet:

D wkBuf           s            132A
   .
   .

   wwIn = open(peFileName : O_RDONLY);
   if (wwIn < 0);
      ... I put an error on the screen and abort if this happens  ...
   endif;

   wwCmd = 'OVRPRTF FILE(QSYSPRT) DEVTYPE(*USERASCII) DEV(' +
         %trim(peDev) + ') OUTQ(' + %trim(peOutq) + ')';
   QCMDEXC(wwCmd: %len(wwCmd));

   open QSYSPRT;
   wkBuf = *ALLx'20';

   dow (read(wwIn: %addr(wkBuf): %size(wkBuf)) > 0);
      except;
      wkBuf = *ALLx'20';  // x'20' = ASCII BLANK
   enddo;

   callp close(wwIn);
   close QSYSPRT;

   wwCmd = 'DLTOVR FILE(QSYSPRT)';
   QCMDEXC(wwCmd: %len(wwCmd));
   .
   .
OQSYSPRT   E
O                       wkBuf              132

The key to the entire process ithe DEVTYPE(*USERASCII).  This tells OS/400
to send the data to the printer as-is without any modification.

As I mentioned before, this also means that you lose a lot of the features
of the spooler.  You can't view the document, or see how many pages it is,
or print a page range.

On the other hand, after doing a ps2pdf on the stream file, I can view it
with Acrobat Reader, and print a page range from the PC if I want to --
just can't do it from OS/400.

It's not a problem for me because the user is looking at a purchase order
on the screen when he has the option to print it, and it prints the one
PO, which is usually about a page long, sometimes two... so printing a
page range isn't very useful in our case.  PostScript works very well in
this case.

Plus, we have Hylafax running on a FreeBSD server (the same one that we
use for Ghostscript/ps2pdf) and it's able to send a PostScript document as
a fax...  that way, anyone can fax a document directly from any 5250
terminal...

But, now I'm rambling... :)