Technical data

4
Providing Automatic Data Type Detection
DECprint Supervisor software can determine the data type of the file to be
printed. This chapter explains how you can customize your printing system to
print the types of files that users need to print.
4.1 How DCPS Automatically Detects Data Type
If a user does not specify the data type and the print queue has no default data
type, DCPS examines each file in the print job. DCPS attempts to determine
the data type of the file from instructions in the file, or from the file name
extension.
If DECprint Supervisor software cannot determine the file data type by any of
these methods, the file is printed as a text file. Text files are handled as ANSI
files unless another default text file data type (PCL or Proprinter) has been
defined by the system manager for the queue or for the system.
When files are treated as text files in this way, the DECprint Supervisor
software can detect PostScript data after the text, so a file that starts with text
followed by PostScript is printed properly.
The process of determining the file data type is repeated for each file in a print
job, so a single print job can contain different types of files.
4.2 Specifying Automatic Data Type Detection
You can control how the DECprint Supervisor software determines the data
type of files as they are printed. You can:
• Link file extensions with data types. You can edit the default file extension
data file to add or modify the standard list of file extensions and the data
types to which they are associated. See Section 4.2.1.
• Specify the default data type to use when DCPS cannot determine the file’s
data type in any other way. You can specify a system wide default and a
queue-specific default text data type. See Section 4.2.2.
Providing Automatic Data Type Detection 4–1