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The following page has been changed by JeremiasMaerki: http://wiki.apache.org/xmlgraphics-fop/AFPResources The comment on the change is: Added some tips for developing with AFP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * The AFP Viewer Internet Explorer plug-in allows viewing of .afp in your browser. It can be found by going to http://www.ibm.com and then enter "AFP Viewer" into the Search box at the top. The first returned result should point to a page from where the viewer can be downloaded. + * A little better might be to install the IBM/!InfoPrint AFP Workbench. It basically contains the same processing engine as the viewer plug-in above. It can be downloaded here: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psd1P4000360 + * The AFP Datastream Analyzer is a command line program that decodes AFP datastreams. It can be found by going to http://www.ibm.com and then enter "afpan" into the Search box at the top. The first returned result should point to a page from where the analyzer can be downloaded. This is really a IBM Mainframe type program and runs best when called from REXX. So you may want to download Open Object REXX from http://www.oorexx.org/. == Other AFP Tools == * [http://www.winafp.com WinAFP] (commercial) is a great tool to inspect AFP files and to manually modify them. Content folding allows to quickly scan through large files. It runs on Microsoft Windows. + == Tips for developing with AFP == + + MO``:DCA & Co. have grown over time but the specifications usually don't tell if a particular feature is an old or new feature. There are still a lot of AFP/IPDS environments around which only support a very old version and only bi-level printing. Relying on just the AFP Workbench has proven to be insufficient as this viewer supports a lot of features and is quite lenient about what you do in AFP. Furthermore, fonts are painted using operating system outline fonts even if you specify bitmap fonts in your print files. Obviously, the best way to test is having an older IPDS laser printer around but there you have the problem that you get non-helpful error messages if something's wrong. Additional, unfortunately commercial, viewer applications can help further during debugging. AFP dumpers like AFPAN (see above) are also a very important source for information. It is quite sensitive to mistakes. Rule number one: Test in as many environments as possible. No single tool will be able to tell you that the file you produced is correct and works in most environments. + + When implementing AFP features it's a very good idea to use the most simple methods available. For example, for bi-level bitmap images, it's best to use the FS10 function set. Or if you want to reduce print file size or improve printing performance, images should not be included as image objects (because Include Object IOB is not available everywhere). Instead, page segments should be used even if that means that you have to embed the same image twice if it needs to be printed in two different sizes (because Include Page Segment IPS doesn't support scaling). But that has another advantage: you can make use of hard page segments which allows to transfer images to the printer separately, thus conserving bandwidth and processing power in the print processor. + --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
