Xerox FreeFlow manual Input processing offline, Host computer tape formats

Specifying input parameters

Input processing offline

For offline operations, the input medium to the printing system is magnetic tape, which may be recorded in one of a variety of standard vendor formats. Offline printing is handled by the Tape Client software, which is an optional part of the FreeFlow Print Server system software.

To submit a tape job, you set up the job on the Tape Client window on the print server and click [START]. The job is submitted to the printer through the Socket or LPR gateway. Refer to the Tape Client Job Submission Guide, delivered with your system, for job setup and submission procedures.

As a programmer, you define the tape input deblocking and record format parameters that reduce physical tape blocks first to logical records, then to print lines.

You can also select special processing commands that facilitate report processing by performing logical functions on the input data.

Before selecting the PDL commands that will describe a specific job tape, you need to understand certain tape structure concepts. These concepts enable you to define job tape characteristics such as host format, block and record structure, tape translation code, packed data formats, and so forth.

Host computer tape formats

The printing system processes input tapes produced by those standard hosts that are discussed in Appendix D, “Offline specifications,” in this manual. The HOST parameter of the VOLUME command enables you to select a specific input tape. The format of each tape is described in the Xerox LPS Tape Formats Manual, which is delivered with your printing system.

2-8 Using LCDS Print Description Language