|
Well, as it turns out, Gumbo Spoolmail can graft an AFP overlay onto a
simple SCS spool file during the PDF conversion (alphabet soup, anybody?)
Thanks to GIMP, a generic AFP WinDoze driver, and a LOT of VERY PATIENT
coaching from List guru Sharon Wintermute, the problem was solved.
The first indication I had that the problem was not as difficult as I'd
thought was when put a stripped-down version of the "tutorial" overlay
onto the customer box, and tried to email myself a spool file with that
overlay attached. Bingie! It worked, and the process was reduced to
simply coming up with an overlay.
That's when a whole off-list conversation with Sharon came in. She
advised me that she used Gumbo Spoolmail all the time, with overlays
generated from M$ Word.
She went on to explain that with an AFP print driver (free download from
IBM), all I had to do was select "print to file" with an output format
of "overlay," FTP it into a DB file on the box, and do a CRTOVL.
Given that the print driver would, at least in theory, work with any
WinDoze application, and that the primary content of the overlay was
graphical in nature, I decided to do it in GIMP. (For those not familiar
with it, GIMP [GNU Image Manipulation Program] is the open source
world's answer to Photoshop, native to Linux, but also available for
WinDoze and Macintosh.) So I put the customer's logo onto a page,
printed it to an overlay, uploaded it, converted it, and transferred it
to the customer box.
Except for having to make sure the receiver file was LVLCHK(*NO) (you'd
think that if CRTOVL doesn't give a rodent's defecatory orifice about
format level, it would be coded to ignore it!), it worked the first
time, and while I've still got a bit of tweaking left, it's looking
quite good indeed.
Thanks, Sharon. I owe you one.
--
James H. H. Lampert
--
This is the RPG programming on the IBM i / System i (RPG400-L) mailing list
To post a message email: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/rpg400-l
or email: RPG400-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at http://archive.midrange.com/rpg400-l.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
This mailing list archive is Copyright 1997-2024 by midrange.com and David Gibbs as a compilation work. Use of the archive is restricted to research of a business or technical nature. Any other uses are prohibited. Full details are available on our policy page. If you have questions about this, please contact [javascript protected email address].
Operating expenses for this site are earned using the Amazon Associate program and Google Adsense.