Things to consider when using cut-sheet emulation

• In CSE mode, PSF treats each half of a sheet of paper as a single physical sheet. An operation that causes a new copy group to be called, and therefore would ordinarily cause a sheet eject, now causes only a half-sheet eject. There are numerous such operations:
  • Change in medium overlay
  • Change to a different set of suppressions
  • Change in the number of copies of a page to be printed
  • Transition from simplex to duplex, or from offset to no offset

  Thus when two consecutive data sets are printed in CSE mode, the second starts on the next available half-sheet, without forcing a sheet eject. A single physical sheet of paper could contain the job trailer for job one and the job header for job two. If you need to prevent this, you can force the header page of a data set to eject to a new sheet by assigning it a form definition that specifies N_UP (N_UP 1 also works) or by setting the new sheet flag (XTP7NSF) in installation Exit 7.

• Form definition parameters PRESENT and DIRECTION, which PSF ordinarily ignores for cut-sheet printers, are accepted in CSE mode. CSE can accommodate a wide range of jobs in addition to those formatted specifically for cut-sheet paper, but it has an unfortunate side effect. Customers have sometimes inadvertently coded FORMDEF options other than the default PORTRAIT/ACROSS. Ordinarily, these options have no effect; but in CSE mode they might suddenly take effect, with unexpected and unwanted results.
• When PSF is running in CSE mode, the SMF type 6 records reflect the actual number of physical sheets of paper moved through the printer for the SMF6FEET and SMF6PGE fields. SMF6IMPS reflects the number of sides of sheets.
• If your application relies on PSF to place pages on the same half-sheet after a reposition or an operator command, PSF forces the number of interrupt message pages to be an even number of copies. You must still consider one of these options for the beginning of the data set:
  • Run with job headers active (Exit 1) and assign a form definition that specifies N_UP on the JOBHDR statement. If data set headers are required, you must also assign a form definition that specifies N_UP on the DSHDR statement.
  • Without job headers and data set headers active, set the XTP7NSF field on in installation Exit 7 (CSE sheet eject parameter in the Printer Inventory). XTP7NSF causes PSF to force each new data set to a new physical sheet.
  • With job headers, data set headers, or both active, set the XTP7NSF and XTP7CPPP fields on in installation Exit 7 (CSE sheet eject and CSE preserve page position parameters in the Printer Inventory). XTP7NSF causes PSF to force each new data set to a new physical sheet. XTP7CPPP causes PSF to preserve page placement by forcing the number of job header and data set header pages to an even number of copies.
• If your printer has an attached post-processor that can do left/right offset stacking, the offset stack (jog) command sent by the printer to the post-processor indicates which half-sheet is to be jogged. The printer determines which half-sheet is to be jogged by simply recognizing which sheet-half was being processed at the time when a jog was requested. If your post-processor cannot handle left/right offset stacking, the printer combines the jog commands so that if either half-sheet is to be jogged, the entire sheet is jogged. However, by using installation Exit 7 (XTP7NSF flag) or the Printer Inventory (CSE sheet eject parameter), you can force a sheet eject if your post-processor does not handle left/right offset stacking. This causes PSF to eject to a new sheet for the first page of a data set and for a copy group that contains a jog request that has been called by an IMM in the data stream.