AFPDS spooled file adjustment

AFPDS spooled file adjustment

Handling mixed CPI and LPI in AFPDS spooled files

The input AFPDS spooled files can contain texts in many different font sizes, and that can be a problem, when InterformNG2 is working on these input spooled files, when trying to map the input spooled file into fixed lines and positions.

 

If you e.g. consider a spooled file with the attribute of 10 CPI, then that means, that there are 10 characters per inch and each character should take up 1/10 of an inch, but if you now imagine, that there are some texts in the same line, that are written in 20 CPI, then there can be twice as many characters per inch as InterformNG2 would expect (when looking at the attribute), and that can cause overprinting of texts, where you can only se parts of the text elements, when you load the AFPDS spooled file in the designer. Normally InterformNG2 will e.g. push text to the right to make space for all the text (avoiding overwriting previous texts), so nothing is lost, but this may cause the alignment of columns to be lost.

 

That is why, you with InterformNG2 can override the CPI and LPI to spread out the spooled file text, and thereby keep fixed positions and line number all through the spooled file.

You can override the external attributes and set higher values via these menu options in InterformNG2.

You need to enter the IFORMNG2 menu from a 5250 emulation screen on the IBM i platform via the command:

IFORMNG2/IFORMNG2:

Now you will see this menu:

IFORMNG2                Interform NG2 Main Menu                            

Select one of the following:                         System . . . :  PMK250
                                                     User . . . . :  KSE   
   Administration                                    Version  . . :  20.32
     1. Work with monitored output queues                                 
     2. Work with XML definitions                                        
     5. Work with IFORMNG2 output queue                                   

    10. Start IFORMNG2 subsystem                                          
    11. End IFORMNG2 subsystem                                            
    12. Work with IFORMNG2 subsystem                                       
                                                                          
    31. Display print service log                                        
    51. Adjust CPI - *AFPDS configuration
    91. License                                      

Selection or command                                                     
===>                                                                          
                                                                           
F3=Exit   F4=Prompt   F9=Retrieve   F12=Cancel                            
F13=Information Assistant  F16=System main menu

Here you need to select option 51. Adjust CPI - *AFPDS configuration to setup the conversion of input AFPDS spooled files:

Work with afpds copy spooled file atributes                  AFP901D              

Position to . . . . . .             Printer file name                      
                                                                               
Type options, press Enter.                                                    
  2=Change   4=Delete   5=Display                                              

     Printer                 Update        Update    Update    CpySplf CpySplf
Opt  file        Library     user          date      time      CPI     LPI    
  MYPRTF      MYLIB       KSE         2018.06.15  12:28:13  20,0    12,0                                                     
                                                                               

                                                                          End  

F3=Exit   F5=Refresh   F6=Create   F12=Cancel 

The spooled file is identified by the printer file used, so you should actually add the printer file in the table above with F6=Create.


In the example above the printer file used is MYPRTF in the library MYLIB. Here is how you can identify the printer file of a spooled file:
From the green screen you first need to find the spooled file in question with either of the commands: WRKOUTQ or WRKSPLF and then you can see the attributes of the spooled file if you enter option 8=Attributes next to the spooled file:


Next you press <Page Down> once to see this:

In the screen above you can see, that this specific spooled file is actually an *SCS spooled file (not an *AFPDS), but you can also see the used printer file and the library of the printer file.
The printer file is listed above as the 'Device file', which in this case is QPRINT and the library of the printer file is QGPL.

 

If you are in doubt as to what CPI and LPI to select, you could e.g. state the CPI to be highest CPI used (or higher) - although keeping in mind that the max. width of a spooled file is still 378, and that it is not that easy to design an overlay, for a spooled file that is so wide, that you are not able to see a complete line at a time. For the LPI it might be a very good idea to select a whole number times the spooled file LPI. So if the spooled file has 6 LPI you could e.g. override it with this function to e.g. 12 LPI (still keeping in mind that the max. number of lines in a spooled file is 255).

 

If you select the double CPI, then every other line in the designer will (normally) be blank, but you can then just use the half line distance in the overlay to compensate for this.

 

If you want to see exactly how InterformNG2 sees the input spooled file, then you can load the spooled file in the Library and then in either the designer or as a sample spooled file in the workflow to see the contents.

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