Manual InterForm400 English 2023

Normally you should avoid using PCL files as graphical resources (and use normal images instead) in InterForm400 because of these facts:

 

1. They are not displayed in the graphical designer.

2. They can only be used for PCL output - not IPL, PDF or ZPL output.

3. Select only a simple HP Laserjet printer driver. If you don’t there will be unpredictable print results..

4. A PCL5 driver for Windows is getting harder to find.

 

The InterForm400 system features a possibility to import PCL-files from a PC by the following methods:

 

•From a PCL spooled file (*USERASCII) on a System i output queue.

•PCL print file placed in the /APF3812Home/Work directory in the IFS.

 

The PCL-file can be created, if you print to file from a PC with the use a generic/universal PCL5 (or PCL5e) printer driver.  

 

Such a universal PCL5e printer driver is not easy to find. One that is currently available (in 2024) is the Mini PCL driver from Kyocera. The resulting PCL file does however include extra PJL commands and especially special Prescribe commands, that can be a problem non-Kyocera printers. You should be able to fairly easy remove the PJL and Prescribe commands with simple text editor like  Notepad++, which supports UTF-8. PJL will normally not be a problem, so you can consider to keep those commands.

 

Notice, that if you keep the PJL commands, then you need to also remove the last command in the PCL file, which switch back from PCL to PJL.

 

Creating and editing the prn/pcl files is not really related to InterForm400, so here you are on your own.

 

No matter how many pages the PC-print consist of only the first page is stored. This is due to the fact that the PC-print is intended to be a part of an overlay for use on only one page.

 

The program cleans the PC-print for unwanted control codes, such as form feed, tray selections and printer reset.

 

When the PC-print has been read into a member in the PCL-file, it can be used in design of an overlay when selecting overlay element PCL file.

 

From the InterForm400 main menu you select these option to work with the installed PCL files:

 

80. Administering InterForm400

6. Work with PCL-files

 

When selecting option 6. Work With PCL Files on the InterForm400® administration menu, you will get the following screen:

 

                                         

The menus for black/white and color files appear identical, but InterForm400® needs to operate with the two file types separately.

 

Selecting e.g. 1. Work with B/W PCL-Files will bring up the following screen:

 

 

Note that using 5=view requires the PCL Viewer, Swiftview to be installed.

 

 

 

Import PCL file

Press F6 to load a PCL file into InterForm400:

 

                                                                 

Enter the member name into which you want to add the PCL file, and which is referred to in an overlay definition.

 

Enter whether you want to read the PCL file from a spool file or from the /APF3812Home/Work directory. In both cases a HP-PCL driver have been used to format the overlay created in a PC application.

If reading from the /APF3812Home/Work directory, the PCL driver should be configured to print to a file. Either directly into the folder APF3812, or to the local hard drive and copied to the folder.

If reading from output queue the PCL driver must be defined to print on a local printer on the System i through iSeries Access.

 

When PCL-File and Load from is selected, the selection for the PC file will appear. If selecting read from the /APF3812Home/Work directory, you will be able to use F4 to list available files

 

 

You can use the PCLTOMBR command to import multiple B/W PCL files from e.g. a folder in qdls.