Re: HP Printers & the AS/400 -- MIDRANGE-L

Dear Ed,

You are experiencing an IBM feature called COR (Computer Output Reduction) with 
your LAN attached laser printers. The feature is controlled by the Degree of 
Page Rotation field in the printer file. The settings *AUTO (default) and *DEVD 
allow COR to be invoked when the page size parameters that activate it are 
present in a spool file. The setting *COR also invokes the function. The 
selections 0 (portrait), 90 (landscape), 180 (reverse portrait), and 270 
(reverse landscape) inhibit COR.

A brief description of COR is appended below:

Your AS/400 is converting your spool files from the native AS/400 EBCDIC 
encoding to an ASCII equivalence before sending the data to your HP printers. 
The AS/400 uses a facility called Host Print Transform to accomplish this task. 
The print driver you choose in the Manufacturer Type and Model field of the 
OUTQ determines the AS/400 features that can be enabled during the HPT process.

When IBM Midrange computers were initially produced, letter quality printing 
was supported with a daisy wheel printer. The printer, known as an IBM 5219, 
could handle both green bar continuous forms paper being fed up through the 
bottom of the printer or letter and legal size paper stored in cut sheet feed 
trays. 

When IBM prepared to begin shipping their first laser printer for the Midrange 
environment (3812 model 1), they were faced with the need to support 
applications that printed on paper that was too large to be fed into a laser 
printer (green/grey bar paper). Their answer was to create a laser printer 
function called Computer Output Reduction (COR). The feature worked much like 
the reduction feature of a copier in that it reduced an incoming report to 70% 
of full size. The form size received from the host had to be larger than LEGAL 
paper in order for the COR function to be invoked. 

All of IBM's direct twinax attach matrix printer products have a defined 
carriage width of 13.2 inches. Since this value is less than the 14 inch length 
of LEGAL paper rotated into landscape orientation, the COR feature is usually 
triggered by the page length being greater than 8.5 inches (more than 51 lines 
at 6 LPI or 68 lines at 8 LPI). The COR font and LPI substitutions are as 
follows:

Host Application Requests 10 CPI        -       Printer Uses 13.3 CPI
Host Application Requests 12 CPI        -       Printer Uses 15 CPI
Host Application Requests 15 CPI        -       Printer Uses 20 CPI
Host Application Requests 17 CPI        -       Printer Uses 27 CPI

Host Application Requests 6 LPI         -       Printer Uses 8.6   LPI
Host Application Requests 8 LPI         -       Printer Uses 11.1 LPI

Top Margin                              -       Set to 1/2 inch
Left Margin                             -       Set to 1/2 inch

The COR function is only used with fixed pitch fonts (i.e. all characters 
receive the same amount of space). It is not a good idea to map reports 
constructed with fixed pitch fonts to a proportional font. If this procedure is 
implemented; bolding, justification, and tabs may not appear as expected.

If you would like to change the font which is selected when COR is invoked; you 
will need to build a Workstation Customization Object which is IBM terminology 
for a customized print driver.

The IBM Manual describing Workstation Customization Programming is available 
for free from the IBM online manuals website in Adobe Acrobat format. The URL 
is http://as400bks.rochester.ibm.com and the book name is QBKAQ602.PDF.

Hope this helps.

/Paul
--
Paul Tykodi, Technical Director                 E-mail: pault@praim.com
Praim Inc.                                           Tel: 603-431-0606
140 Congress St., #2                                Fax: 603-436-6432
Portsmouth, NH  03801-4019

Date:   Sat, 18 Jul 1998 11:45:41 -0500
From:   "Ed Tate" <etate01@sun.hazelwood.k12.mo.us>
Subject:        HP Printers & the AS/400

I know that we have been through this before and I have diligently saved
a bunch of those messages.

I can get the HP5SiMX printer to over the LAN as an AS/400 printer but no
matter how hard I try it insists on squishing the print to fit on only
1/4 of the page.  I'm getting too old to see anything that small.  I have
several HP5's and one HP4 and they all do the same thing.  What am I
missing????

TIA.     
                                                                
Ed Tate (etate01@sun.hazelwood.k12.mo.us)
Coordinator of Technical Services
Hazelwood School District
15955 New Halls Ferry
Florissant, MO  63031
314-953-5090 
314-953-5085 (Fax)

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