Re: Can anyone recommend a video(s) or a guide on how to use RDi to build PRTF's?

Bad News. RDi doesn't provide WYSIWYG support for the AFP keywords in DDS such as LINE, BOX, PAGSEG, etc. It <would> be nice, but a I doubt an RFE would ever see the light of day. (Printer files are used less and less in favour of PDF generation, email, spreadsheet download, etc.)

Sadly IBM's AFPU utility has also been withdrawn:

"IBM® Advanced Function Printing Utilities (5770-AF1) is no longer supported.
The last release for IBM Advanced Function Printing Utilities (5770-AF1) was IBM i 7.2. The Advance Function Presentation data stream is now an open architecture managed by the AFP Consortium. Replacement products, which offer support for a wider range of image formats and modern font technologies, are available from several of the companies that are members of the AFP Consortium. Among the replacement products are DocPath Boulder Suite (from DocPath) and Overview AFP Designer for iSeries (from Isis-Papyrus). This is not a comprehensive list of replacement products, as other companies may also offer function which replaces Advanced Function Printing Utilities."

This was a neat green-screen tool in its day.

You've indicated that you cannot implement Bill's approach for creating *OVL objects. I can only suggest searching for some 3rd-party software that might do the trick.

Printing and AFP has always been something of a "Cinderella" function within the IBM i, partly because it has been the responsibility of a separate business within IBM. (Printing invoices has always seemed to me to be a fundamental need of any business!) This is definitely an area where RDi could up its game - perhaps an opportunity for some external plug-in?

Brian.

On 24/05/2019 16:45, dfreinkel wrote:

I am building a new AR statement program and am trying to build a modern
statement that is using boxes, lines and fonts.

Its been years since I last created a printer file and so decided to use RDi
rather than RLU to create the printer file.

I have found it very difficult to use. It seems basic and I find myself
using the source tab to enter stuff or create record formats. Surely, this
is not how to do that.

The WYSIWIG also does not appear to work. I cannot see the boxes, lines or
font changes and have to print the page from a rpg program to see what it
looks like.

Darryl Freinkel