Re: Creation of printer object for landscape printing. -- MIDRANGE-L

Dave Odom wrote:
I've asked my systems programmer to create a way for me to send
printouts to an HP LAN attached printer in portrait or landscape
orientations, at will.  This so I can choose different printers and
therefore  print orientations from the list of printers available to DB2
Query Manager or other applications.  Currently, the DB2 QM printer list
only consists of printers that have been configured in the portrait
orientation.   As you might guess these printers are also used for
regular PC printing(Word, etc.).  And, as you know, what I ask is easily
chosen from a PC application.

What object(s) does my systems programmer need to create on the iSeries
for each LAN HP-type printer and how does he configure them to allow a
choice for print orientation from the iSeries?   I would assume he needs
to create one print device, such as a 3812 but two or more print writers
and/or print queues.  If so, how is that done and which configuration
methodology provides the most flexibility?   Best practices are
requested.

It seems like all our Printers are configured with a device class of
*VRT and a type of 3812.  I assume 3812 was picked by whomever
originally configured the systems as being the closest IBM device type
to HP LAN attached printers since there are no HP device types in the
list of acceptable types.

If what I ask is already well documented at the IBM web site or on the
CD's that come with the OS, please let me know so I can point my systems
programmer in the appropriate direction.

( Chill out, Joe - I thought I was the only one that goes Postal on people! <lol> )

Dave -

My answer is based on the assumption that the only application that is presenting a problem for you is the Query Manager. I'm not an expert at Query Manager, but here is my experience with it.

By default, the DB2 Query Manager uses printer file QSYS/QPQXPRTF for spooled output.

As shipped from IBM, QPQXPRTF is set up with CPI = 10 and Width = 80. Consequently, any spooled output sent to this printer file will be truncated after position 80 (in order to fit on a portrait-oriented page) and a new spooled file created with the overflow.

The resulting output is very ugly - you must literally tape the portrait pages together side-by-side to see the whole report, if it is over 80 characters wide when printed.

One way to deal with the orientation issue (see Caveat below):

Change the QSYS/QPQXPRTF printer file CPI to 15 and width to 198, like this (permanently):

   CHGPRTF FILE(QSYS/QPQXPRTF) PAGESIZE(*N 198) CPI(15)

(although I'd probably use CRTDUPOBJ to copy it into your own system library that is higher than QSYS in the system portion of the library list (see the QSYSLIBL system value) and change the the copy of the printer file, not the one in QSYS library)

The reports will now print in landscape orientation, whether printed interactively or in batch.

The Caveat: - Unfortunately, with this change, reports created with Query Manager will _always_ print in landscape orientation.

If you need to be able to switch between portrait and landscape orientation, then you'll need to build some kind of front-end program or command to perform the necessary overrides (or library list manipulation to use different versions of the QPQXPRTF printer file) just before running the reports, as others have indicated.

Regards,
Steve Landess