Printers - Common questions

These common questions are typically associated with printers. If you can't find the answer to your question here, click the Index or Search tab of the Help to search for a specific word or phrase.

Creating printers

Managing print jobs

See also:


Configuring the Barr LPR port when printing to an IBM 3160 network printer

When you configure the Barr LPR port to print to a TCP/IP printer, you must specify the following parameters on the Job tab: in the Printer queue (-P) box, type afccu2 and under Transmission format, select Control file last (-E).

Configuring the Barr File port to automatically create new file names

When BHCS writes to disk and encounters a duplicate file name, you can select to create a new file on the File Options tab. How a file is renamed depends on whether or not the file name is limited to eight characters.

If you select to limit the file name to eight characters on the File Options tab, BHCS generates a numeric extension for the new file, starting with .001. If hundreds of duplicate names are encountered and extension .999 is reached, the software places a separator character and then 1 at the end of the file name, and begins the extension sequence again (Name#1.001). It will repeat this renumbering sequence until it reaches Name#10.999. The default separator character is a number sign (#), however you can specify a new separator character on the File Options tab.

File Options Tab

If file names are not limited to eight characters, BHCS appends numbers to the first part of the file name, without changing the extension. It adds a number sign followed by 10 sequential digits, starting with Name#0000000001.ext. If hundreds of duplicate names are encountered, the software repeats this renumbering sequence until it reaches Name#9999999999.ext.

Sending S/370 data with LPR

Sending S/370 data with LPR requires the S/370 file to be received as a binary file. To do this, the data must first be written to file in S/370 format, and then imported back into BHCS as a binary file. This binary file can then be written to M.I.S. Print as a raw/binary file.

  1. Write the file to disk. Select the S/370 format on the File Format tab.

  2. Use Print Utility to add the file back to the spool. Use the following settings:

  1. Print data to a TCP/IP printer. Use the following settings:

Printing NJE or RJE-received Metacode jobs to a Barr LPR printer

Before you can print NJE or RJE-received Metacode files to a Barr LPR printer, you must remove the NJE wrapping. (That is, when files are received with NJE or RJE, the data remains in NJE-wrapped format Equivalent to the NJE format at the mainframe. The data is typically EBCDIC and is formatted as NJE records, with NJE record headers and NJE file headers., and when the files are sent out with LPR there is no way to strip off the NJE wrapping and keep the data from being converted.)

Perform the following steps to print NJE or RJE-received Metacode jobs to a Barr LPR printer.

  1. Write the data to disk. Select the Binary (raw) format on the File Format tab.

  2. Add the file back into the spooler with the Print Utility. Select the Binary (raw) format on the Format tab.

  3. When you create the Barr spool printer, on the Advanced Printer Options dialog box select Special: Pass data to printer without conversion. See the Passing data to the printer without conversion topic for more information.

Printing S/370 data to M.I.S. Print

M.I.S. Print accepts S/370 formatted data files, but they must be sent by the Barr IP port using native TCP/IP. Create a new printer using the Barr IP Port. When you configure the port, select the S/370 format on the File Format tab. To do this, follow the steps in the Writing to a TCP/IP socket topic.

Connecting to a network printer

When you are connecting to a network, you must be logged on to the same user account specified during installation. Complete the following steps to find out what account was entered during installation.

  1. Open the Services utility.

  2. Select the BARR SpoolCore service, and on the menu bar select Action | Properties.

  3. Select the Log On tab. The account specified under Log on as is the user that needs to create the network printers. Once the printers are created, all users with valid user rights in the Barr Host Communications Suite can log on and the network printers will be available.

  4. If a system account is selected, we recommend you uninstall and then reinstall the software selecting the user account type. If you are unable to uninstall and reinstall the software, you can configure the service to log on as a user account.

Starting and stopping physical printers

You can start and stop physical printers from the printer's control panel.

To start physical printers

You can start individual physical printers by pressing the online button on your printer's control panel.

To stop physical printers

You can stop individual physical printers by pressing the offline button on your printer�s control panel.

Determining if overlays are being sent with jobs

When configuring the Barr Host Communications Suite to send overlays to printers, it can be useful to determine which overlays are actually being sent. Complete the following steps to determine the overlay being sent to the printer:

  1. Create a trace file using the Operator Console. On the Options dialog box, use the following settings: under the BHCS module, select PLC and set the priority level to Trace.

  2. Send your jobs to the printer. Every job that is sent to a printer with overlays correctly enabled will result in an Operator Console message similar to the following:

Module: PLC - BARR SpoolCore Service

Priority: Trace

Date & Time: variable

Message: Information about which file was used as an overlay

Module ID: 10

Message ID: 6001

Thread ID: variable

The code is always 6001 and the priority level is Trace. Therefore, it might be easier to find these types of messages if you scan for them based on code and priority, then scroll over to examine the message to determine which overlay file is being applied.

Clearing a print job from BHCS

Complete the following steps to reset the Barr SpoolCore service and clear the Windows spooler buffers.

  1. Change the spool document state to Hold.

  2. Stop the spool printer. The printer state changes to Draining.

  3. Stop the BARR SpoolCore and spooler services.

  4. Restart the Windows spooler service.

  5. Open the Windows Printer folder and double-click the desired printer to make sure the job has cleared.

  6. Restart the BARR SpoolCore service.

Printing to a Barr LPR port or network-attached printer in landscape format

Landscape printing can be set in the Windows printer's document defaults if a non-text driver is being used (for example, not the Generic/Text Only or the Barr ASCII printer drivers). Use the following procedure to set the printer's page layout to landscape mode.

This will cause every job sent to that printer to print in landscape mode, even when printing from a program other than the Barr Host Communications Suite. If this is not the desired result, you need to create a page layout.

  1. Open the Windows Printers folder.

  2. Right-click the printer and select Printing Preferences.

  3. Select the Layout tab and select Landscape.

Formatting mainframe output to fit on 8.5-by-11-inch paper

You can use the Configuration Utility's Page Layout tab to maintain a list of registered page layouts that can be used to specify print options such as paper size, orientation, fonts, and font sizes when printing. Page layouts are assigned to print jobs whenever a registered page layout name is recognized in a specified header field. Thus, an important step in defining page layouts is specifying a header field that will contain the page layout name.

See the Working with page layouts topic for specific steps on creating a page layout. When you define a page layout, consider the following page setup and font settings:

If jobs are still printing portrait after selecting landscape, follow the instructions in the Printing to a Barr LPR port or network-attached printer in landscape format topic.

Printing PostScript data through LPD

To print PostScript data through LPD, data files need to be received in Binary (raw) format and passed through unmodified to the printer. Changes must be made in both the LPD queue settings in the TCP/IP Configuration utility and the spool printer settings in the Configuration Utility.