HP OpenVMS Systems

DCPS, PCL and printer tray selection?

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The Question is:

 
Running a 3 node alpha cluster, and using dcps printing
 
Recently we have purchased a LN32 printer with 5 in trays and 10 out trays
 
My application needs to send ASCII and PCL files to the printer and we wish to
 be able to direct output in either case to any one of the 10
 mailbox output bins according to user preference.
 
Adding /PARAMETERS=OUTPUT_TRAY=MAILBOX_nn works fine when sending ASCII files,
 but is ignored when sending PCL files.
 
We have noted that by adding NUMBER_UP, for example, forces PCL to PostScript
 DCPS translation and results in the correct output bin being used,
but some PCL codes are not correctly translated resulting in text
 mis-positioned in the wrong fonts.
 
Is there a way of sending PCL files for printing in PCL mode with output
 directed to a  selected output tray?
E.g. is there some change which can be made to the printer setup or some print
 command parameter which I have not been able to find?
 
Or are there PCL codes available for output tray selection on this printer
 which could be embedded in the files?
 
Or can this only be done in PostScript (to modify the application to write
 PostScript instead of PCL would be a not insignificant undertaking)?
 
Also there is a requirement for potentially controlling the input trays as well.
 
Can you help
 
 
 

The Answer is :

 
  As described in the DCPS documentation, you cannot select trays when
  printing PCL files to the printer's native PCL interpreter using DCPS.
  This is because the PostScript environment in a printer is lost when
  switching to PCL.
 
  Trays can be selected when using the DCPS PCL translator because the
  data going to the printer is PostScript.  When using some DCPS features
  (eg: NUMBER_UP), the DCPS PCL translator is used since PostScript is
  used to rotate and scale the image of each page.
 
  The DCPS PCL translator is a PCL 4 translator.  PCL 5 and PCL 6 escape
  sequences are not recognized and so may cause incorrect output.
 
  There are PCL escape sequences for selecting input and output trays.
  These could be used in setup modules, for example, to select trays for
  PCL jobs.  Please refer to PCL documentation, available from HP and
  elsewhere, for information about PCL escape sequences.
 

  

     

     
answer written or last revised on ( 6-FEB-2001 )
     
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