Re: AS/400 print to PC for almost free

Here we make some work like you want :

Iseries reports are send to a generic outq

I had a dataQueue to this outq
Made a little program to identify and map the spools
And export it in xml format (x and y position, value, police .....) when
asked by http server

On "PC" side, we use php with free phpToPdf tool

Here is the scenario :

One spool is produced,
A pgm receive the dataQueue info
If the spool is stored to be mapped, send a request to the pc http server
(ask me for this spool please..)
The pc server ask the iseris for xml data
Convert it to pdf (and also to PCL or PS to print it directly)
If wanted, send the spool by mail, and/or store it whith some keyworkds
(from the mapping pgm)

It cost only some times...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Al Mac" <macwheel99@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2005 6:54 PM
Subject: AS/400 print to PC for almost free


> I have altered AS/400 reports to make them "Excel friendly" by removing
> sub-totals and control breaks, and making them simple lists, where the
> Excel user reinstates the breaks.
>
> I have shown several co-workers how to get such reports into Excel or
> standard text with proportional print, but I have not been impressed with
> our overall results, that I have seen.  They work, but look horrendously
> amateurish, not appropriate to send outside the company.
>
> I also have reports in which it is a big deal for me to do that because
the
> reports in question involve a bunch of lines on each item, where the
number
> of lines is unpredictable and different format, using 198 print positions
> on green bar.  I can put that report in e-mail to someone who has PC but
no
> AS/400 and the result for them is unreadable.
>
> What I want is to get it into a format that is user-friendly for a PC user
> with zero AS/400 know-how, not connected to the 400, (and also ideally not
> need much PC know-how like what it is you do to printer setup to get
> landscape print on selected reports then put it back the way it was), to
> search report for some customer name or item # or whatever, zoom in on
that
> section of the report so it is readable, reprint just a few pages of the
> total report, and have it legible on their PC, without having to mess with
> Printer Setup to get landscape and other alterations just for that report.
>
> I plan to look into Adobe Acrobat PDF onto my home PC to create the AS/400
> reports, or perhaps get some equivalent results shareware onto my home
> PC.  My home PC is Windows 98 which now talks to the work 400 via VPN over
> what is laughingly called "high speed" Internet connection.
>
> The recipients of this would include our sales reps who deal with
> customers, and are more often away from the office than in the city of our
> company, co-workers who need to send AS/400 to a variety of customers,
> vendors, and other trading partners.  If I perfect a method after spending
> a few hundred bucks of my own money on adding stuff to my home PC, I think
> some (very few) co-workers might want to follow suit if I swear the hassle
> factor has been dramatically reduced, and the nature of the product
> involved is such that they can have like a 30+ day free trial to see if I
> am correct about the workability of the solution..
>
> My management is utterly opposed to spending any money to get anything we
> not already have on our AS/400 model 170 V5R1, but at same time we want to
> maximize value from what we have.  We own the AS/400 outright, and dropped
> software support years ago.  We do have tech support contracts but they
are
> 100% if we not call the tech support place, we do not pay a dime, not even
> an annual fee.
>
> At present, I am willing to spend a small amount of $ to install something
> on my home PC, if it will not further degrade my home PC security, which
now
>   uses a D-Link Router, various Norton products, a couple anti-spyware,
and
> I still have security problems   At one time I was willing to spend a
small
> amount of my $ to buy shareware to install on company computer, but at the
> moment I am not so inclined.  By small amount of $ I mean around $50-200
> bucks budget.
>
> -
> Al Macintyre  http://www.ryze.com/go/Al9Mac
> BPCS/400 Computer Janitor ... see
> http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html
> -- 
> This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing
list
> To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
> visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
> or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
> at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.
>
>