Intermate i5, iSeries manual Appendix K Forms Server for non-AS/400 environments

Appendix K - Forms Server for non-AS/400 environments

InterForm400® can act as a Forms Server for other environments, such as WindowsNT, UNIX, Novell etc.

For instance it is possible with Client Access to create a printer in Windows, which directs print jobs either as PCL (datatype *ASCII) or print jobs which has been converted to SCS (datatype *SCS) to an AS/400 attached printer. The latter function was originally designed for printing PC print jobs on twinax printers, but can be used as input for InterForm400® to print electronic forms.

Adding Overlays to *SCS PC Print Jobs (PC Mail Merge)

This function is a popular way of doing large mailings with advanced graphics. For example the normal situation when merging database records with a graphical MS-Word document is, that each page in the resulting output will have all graphics included. This takes long time to process on both the PC and the printer, it requires lots of hard disk space and not least, it generates a lot of network traffic.

With InterForm400®, you can load the form document as an overlay and send the data records as a simple SCS print job to a queue monitored by InterForm400®. This is an extremely effective way of making large mailings.

The following is a short description of the procedure for setting up the environment in Windows9x/NT with Client Access:

1.In Windows Click Start, Printer and Click the “Add Printer” icon. The same printer should be used as input to InterForm400®. Tag “Network Printer” and click Continue, Locate your AS/400 under the “Client Access network” and chose a printer on the AS/400.

Note: If no printers are displayed (if all printers are defined as remote writers), or if you do not have a printer available on the AS/400 to use as input queue to Auto Forms Control, you must create a “dummy” writer. This automatically creates an output queue, which you can use as input queue to AutoFormsControl:

CRTDEVPRT DEVD(LAN_FSP) DEVCLS(*VRT) TYPE(3812)

MODEL(1) FONT(11) ONLINE(*NO)

The printer installation wizard will now ask you to select a driver for the printer. Select an older twinax printer type like an IBM 5256 or IBM 4214. Now finalise the add printer wizard.

2.Create a simple forms document in e.g. MS-Word to merge the data into. This forms document should be without any formatting. It should contain nothing but the fields where the data from the data source are inserted. Now merge the data source with this forms document, and send the merged document to the printer created in step 1. The spool file would look like this on the AS/400:

426User’s Manual for InterForm400®