6.0
Table Of Contents
- Capturing Data
- Overview
- Key Concepts
- Detailed Directions
- Capture Sample Data for a Document You Install on a Printer
- Capture Sample Data for a Document You Install in PlanetPress Watch
- Capture Sample Data in Windows NT
- Capture Sample Data in Windows 2000/Server 2003/XP
- Capture Sample Data in Windows Host Using a Novell Print Server
- Capture Sample Data in UNIX (Solaris)
- Capture Sample Data using an AS/400 Systems
- Capture Sample Data From a Serial Port
- Creating Triggers
- Overview
- Key Concepts
- Detailed Directions
- Implement a Trigger under Novell 3.x
- Implement a Trigger under Novell 4.x and 5.x with NDS or Bindery Printers
- Implement a Trigger under Windows NT 4.0 with TCP/IP
- Implement a Trigger under BSD Printing Systems (BSDi, FreeBSD, Linux)
- Implement a Trigger under UNIX System V (Solaris)
- Implement a Trigger and Configure an AIX 4.3 Printer
- Implement a Trigger under VMS
- Implement a Trigger with AS/400 Systems
- Prepare SAP Device Type for PlanetPress Design
- Implement a Trigger under HP 3000
- Special Printer Requirements
- ASCII Conversion Table
- CL Program for AS/400 Systems
- Index
2
Capturing Data
1
• “What is a spool file?” (p. 2)
Key Concepts
Sample Data File
The sample data file is a text file that contains a representative sample of the input data destined for the
document, as that input data arrives at a printer or a PlanetPress Watch process. You use a data capture
process to create a sample data file.
You create your document based on the contents of this sample data file. Whether the document you
create executes properly, and under all circumstances, with the input data it receives when it executes
depends on how accurately the sample data file represents that input data. The two criteria for a reliable
sample data file are:
1. It includes all possible variations on the data that the document may encounter when it executes.
A sample data file that does not take into account all possible variations on the data can have serious
consequences. For example, if you design a cheque based on an amount field of a certain length, and
one of the records in the input data exceeds that length, the result is a cheque with an incorrect
amount.
Things to check for variation include field lengths, the location of decimal points in numeric data, and
whether or not a field always contains data.
2. It exactly represents the input data at the moment that data arrives at the printer or PlanetPress Watch
process. A difference of a single character can result in a document that does not produce accurate
results.
If your sample data file does not meet this criteria, you end up creating a document that executes with
a different input data structure than the one for which you designed it.
Spool File
A spool file is a file containing a job destined for a specific printer. When you print a file, the application you
use to print writes a file to the spool folder for that printer. The system monitors this folder. When a file
appears in the folder, it sends that file to the printer, and deletes it from the spool folder.
It is common to use a spool file as the sample data file for a document you intend to install on a printer.
What is a sample data file?
What is a spool file?