Re: lp5250 fonts & page alignement -- LINUX5250

My problem is different... I can't set anything on AS400. I'm trying toport some workstations to linux, but print settings on AS400 areuntouchables. I need to set printing condition (if possible) withlp5250d.

In order to do that, you'll have to stop using env.IBMMFRTYPMDL, sincethat keyword tells the AS/400 to do the transformation to the printerlanguage -- and you say you can't change anything on the AS/400.Personally I think this is a mistake -- you should discuss this with theAS/400 administrator, perhaps showing him/her my previous e-mail (or atranslation) because it provides a great deal more flexibility.

If you really can't do it that way, then you'll have to do it withoutenv.IBMMFRTYPMDL. If you don't use that keyword, then the printouts won'tbe transformed on the AS/400, and you can do all of the work on the Linuxbox.

It's important to understand that lp5250d is only a communication daemon.It communicates with the AS/400, and downloads the printout from the spoolstill in it's original SCS format. It does no transformation of that dataitself.

For each spooled file it downloads, lp5250d will launch a new Linuxprocess, and open a pipe to that process (it uses the popen() function todo this). It'll use the pipe to send the SCS data. The command/programthat it runs in the new process is defined by the outputcommandconfiguration keyword.


For example, I might do this:

    lp5250d outputcommand="scs2ascii|lpr" env.DEVNAME=PRT01 as400

This tells lp5250d that (for each report it downloads) it should open apipe to program named scs2ascii. scs2ascii will convert the document fromSCS format to an ASCII text file. The output from scs2ascii issubsequently piped to the lpr command, which puts it in the Unix printqueue.

You can specify anything you like for this output command. You could evenwrite a shell script or program that makes big changes to the documentbefore sending it to the printer.

For example, you might use the enscript tool (which should be easy to findfor Linux) to make some transformations on the data. You could do thefollowing:


outputcommand="scs2ascii|enscript --no-header -p- -q -fCourier-Bold@10/12|lpr 
-Pps4"

(sorry if the preceding line wrapped -- it should all be one line)

This tells lp5250d to convert the SCS data to plain ASCII text, and pipethe ASCII text to the enscript program. Enscript converts the document toPostScript. The postscript that's written out will print the documentwith the Courier-Bold font, 10 points wide, and 12 points high.

The output from enscript is sent to the printer via LPR, and I've includedthe switch -Pps4 to tell it which print queue to use. Of course,if youdidn't want it to print, you don't have to use LPR. You can just redirectthe stream to a file. Or to /bin/mail if you want to e-mail it. Whateveryou want to do...

Of course the output from enscript is PostScript rather than PCL, so ifyour printers don't understand PostScript, you'll want to configure Linuxso that the print spooler automatically converts PostScript documents toPCL for that printer. (You'll want that for other things as well, sincealmost all Linux software writes printer output in PostScript)

There's also a tool called scs2pdf that's included with tn5250. You canuse that in lieu of scs2ascii if you want the output in PDF format insteadof plain ASCII text.