Positioning a Logical Page on a Sheet

The example in this topic shows how the OFFSET subcommand is used to position the logical page on the physical sheet. A logical page is the area on a sheet of paper where all printing occurs. You establish the logical page origin, the point nearest the media origin, with the OFFSET subcommand. The OFFSET subcommand requires two coordinates and might have four. The first x and y coordinate defines the position on the front of the sheet, and the second x and y coordinate defines the position on the back of the sheet. A sample form definition that specifies the logical page position for a simplex sheet is:

FORMDEF ABCD
        OFFSET 1 IN 1 IN ;

Note: The 1 IN 1 IN is an abbreviation for 1 INCH 1 INCH. PPFA supports a number of different units of measurement formats. See Units of Measurement for all the different formats.

The example places the logical page origin 1 inch to the right of and 1 inch down from the media origin.

Figure 1 shows the meaning of the x and y coordinates. In writing an OFFSET subcommand, the first parameter specifies x; the second parameter specifies y. If the x and y are repeated for the offset of the back side of the physical page, the same applies. The x defines the horizontal offset; the y defines the vertical offset. In this example, the logical page direction is ACROSS. The arrows within the logical page indicate the inline direction for text on the page. The lines of text are added according to the baseline direction.

Figure 1. Origin of Logical Page

Figure 2 shows the meaning of x and y in a logical page specification for a 3900 sheet. The 3900 sheet does not have an unprintable area, but FORMDEFs supplied with the print server have a 1/6 inch offset.

Figure 2. Origin of a Logical Page on a 3900 Sheet