Overview of AFP printing

AFP is an architecture-based system of hardware and software for creating, formatting, viewing, retrieving, printing, and distributing information using a wide variety of printer and display devices.

Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) is the original, integrated data stream on IBM® i for generating fully composed pages of data. Traditional line-mode print applications compose a line at a time down the page (typically continuous form pages), whereas AFP composes the entire page before printing. In AFP, page elements such as text, images, bar codes, page segments, and overlays, can be specified in any order at any position in the page. This is called all points addressability.

Advanced Function Presentation data stream (AFPDS) is a printer-independent data stream that composes full pages within a document. Many of the page elements you can use with AFP are special objects called resources.

AFPDS

AFPDS files can be generated on IBM i as well as many other platforms. These operating systems can send AFPDS files to each other for printing on AFP-configured printers.

PSF

Print Services Facility (PSF) combines print data with resources to manage and control data transmitted to AFP printers. PSF accepts various data streams, transforms these data streams into the data stream required by each printer, and then transmits the data to the printer. PSF uses processing and printing options specified by the user and the installation during these processes. In addition, PSF does the following:
  • Manages resources.
  • Verifies part of the input data stream's syntax (the printer verifies the remainder of the syntax).
  • Provides diagnostic aids, which provide information that can be used for problem analysis.
  • Reports the status of a printer to the system operator.
  • Provides accounting information.
  • Provides error-recovery procedures for AFP printers. If a spooled file does not print due to a printer problem such as a paper jam, PSF retransmits the affected pages when the problem at the printer is corrected.

To use AFP support on IBM i, typically PSF must be installed. However, if the ASCII data stream is converted through Host Print Transform, you can use the AFP support without installing PSF.