Re: Graphical Forms Generation - Redbooks?

IBM AS/400 Printing V
http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/abstracts/sg242160.html?Open

IBM eServer iSeries Printing VI: Delivering the Output of e-business
http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246250.html?Open

IBM eServer iSeries Printing VII: Infoprint Server Implementation
http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/abstracts/redp3752.html?Open

If all you want are boxes and lines, you might be able to get away
with just using DDS keys words BOX, LINE.

Otherwise, you're going to want to a tool to create AFPDS Overlays
and/or page segments. There are two options:
1) IBM AFP Printer driver and any Windows application that can print
(Word, Excel, ect)
2) An IBM or third party tool that creates AFPDS resources directly

Option 2 is the best, as you have better control over placement of the
lines, text, pictures, ect. But will cost $$$. Big dollars for the
most part. IBM's tool for designing AFPDS resources is called
Infoprint Designer. At one point, there were similar third party
tools.

Also at one point, IBM offered a green screen tool "AFP Utilities for
iSeries (5722-AF1)" that allowed you to create overlays and page
segments in a manner similar to SDA. The green screen tool was a heck
of a lot cheaper than the WISIWYG Windows based tools.

Back in the late 90's when I was dealing with this, one of the things
I was trying to do was shade every other line on a 8-LPI invoice. I
couldn't get the shading and the print to line up with an overlay
created using Word and the AFP print driver. But when I created the
overlay with the AFP Utilities, it matched up great. To this day, the
electronic forms version of the invoice is still being used. As is an
electronic form version of the Customer AR statement I created later
also using AFP utilities.

HTH,
Charles




On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Brian Piotrowski
<bpiotrowski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi All,

Can someone point me to some resources for developing graphical forms that can be printed out?  I think there was a Redbook that discussed how to code forms but I'll be damned if I can find it now.

Basically what I want to do is develop a set of forms that have boxes and shaded areas and populate it with data from a database.  I'm not sure how much more vague I can be. :P

I did a search on the midrange archives, but came up empty as well.

Thanks.

/b;

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Simcoe Parts Service, Inc.
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Fx: 705-435-5029
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