Printing Color Images From the IBM System i Products

Resolving The Problem

This document describes how to print color images from the IBM Power Systems.

This document was last updated on 19 December 2014.

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Print Services Facility/400 (PSF/400) and IPDS Color Laser Printers

Print Services Facility/400 (PSF/400) supports printing text, overlays and page segments in color, but this support requires a color printer that is capable of printing color through Intelligent Printer Data Stream (IPDS). There are a number of color printers with IPDS chips, but many of these printers support printing in color through a PCL or PostScript (PS) data stream but not through an IPDS data stream.

Note: The IBM Infoprint Color 1452 and 1464 printers are a few printer models that support printing color images through IPDS.

Host Print Transform (HPT) and PCL Color Laser Printers

Host Print Transform (HPT) supports printing color text to a PCL-capable or PPDS-capable color laser printer, but does not support printing color overlays, page segments, or barcodes. The Manufacturer type and model (MFRTYPMDL) parameter must be set to a value that supports color printing, such as *HPCOLORLJ, *IBM4308, *LEXOPTRAC or *LEXMARKC750, or if using a modified Workstation Customizing Object (WSCST) then the WSCST source code must contain the appropriate Foreground Color (FOREGRND) tags and must not be setup to print using Raster Mode.

Transform Services

Starting with 6.1 i5/OS, the Transform Services product (5761TS1) can be used to generate a PDF stream file in the Integrated File System (IFS), instead of generating a spooled file in an output queue. 7.1 i5/OS, the Transform Services product (5770TS1) can also be used to convert an existing *SCS or *AFPDS spooled file to a PDF stream file in the Integrated File System (IFS).

Transform Services supports color AFP objects; however, this support occurs only when using a *PDF transform, for example when specifying WSCST(*PDF) or WSCST(QSYS/QCTXPDF2).

For more information on Transform Services, refer to the following documents:

N1018568: Using Transform Services to Generate PDF Stream Files instead of Spooled Files
N1011580: New CPYSPLF function to copy SPLFs to Stream Files in the IFS

Once the PDF stream file has been generated in the IFS, you can access the PDF files using an IBM i NetServer file share or System i Navigator, then use Adobe Reader or a third-party PDF application to print the PDF file on a color laser printer.

If you have a color laser printer capable of printing PDF version 1.3, you may be able to print the PDF stream file directly from the IBM i system by either using FTP to send the PDF stream file directly to printer, or by using FTP to send the PDF stream file to a printer file that has the Printer device type (DEVTYPE) parameter set to *USERASCII and then printing the resulting *USERASCII spooled file through a *LAN 3812 printer device description, Remote Output Queue (RMTOUTQ), or PC5250 or TN5250e printer session.

Infoprint Server for iSeries and Color Laser Printers that Support Direct PDF Printing

Another option for printing color on ASCII color laser printers is using Infoprint Server to generate *USERASCII spooled files containing color images within PDF version 1.4 output. This method has the following requirements:

o	IBM AFP V1.81.00 (or newer) drivers, which are available at the following Web site: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/as400/products/clientaccess/win32/afpprinter/win2000xp/
o	Infoprint Server with current PTFs. For a list of the latest Print and InfoPrint Server PTFs, refer to the Recommended Fixes Web site, which is available at: http://www-912.ibm.com/s_dir/slkbase.nsf/recommendedfixes For information on the Print Group PTFs, refer to the PSP - Group PTFs Web site, which is available at: http://www-912.ibm.com/s_dir/sline003.NSF/GroupPTFs?OpenView&view=GroupPTFs
o	A color laser printer capable of printing PDF version 1.4
o	A PC with Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP to generate a color page segment or overlay

Printing Color Images or Generating Color Overlays and Page Segments using the AFP Printer Driver

Install and configure the AFP 300dpi printer driver by using the instructions in the following documents:

N1018625: Creating AFP Resources Using the IBM AFP Printer Drivers

N1015133: Generating Color Overlays and Page Segments Through the IBM AFP Print Driver

Note that PDFs can be created only at 240 or 300 pel, so the driver must match.

After the driver is installed, go to Start > Settings > Printers. Right-click on the printer and select Printing Preferences > Image Option... > Properties. Change Color Options to Full Color - 32Bit CMYK and change Graphic Options to Basic.



Note: The Compression option only applies if you have image compression turned on and you select the Full color- 32Bit CMYK color option. If you want to compress all of your full color image objects, you must choose between the LZW or the JPEG compression algorithm. If your image objects are primarily text, LZW compression is recommended. If your image objects are primarily photographic images, JPEG compression is recommended. The default value is JPEG.



Continue to create the overlay per the following document:

N1018625: Creating AFP Resources Using the IBM AFP Printer Drivers

Attach the overlay to a spooled file. Print the spooled file through Infoprint Server that uses PDFGEN(*SPLF) output and that points to the output queue for the physical printer.

Notes:

1.	This process will generate a *USERASCII spooled file that contains PDF version 1.4 output. This spooled file will not print through an *IPDS printer device description, and it will not print (or it will not print correctly) if the ASCII color laser printer does not support direct PDF output or if it supports only PDF version 1.3.
2.	The color might look a little off if it is viewed before printing because it is color matched for the printer, not for viewing.
3.	There are some funny effects in the PDF file if a color page segment overlaps with text. White is actually transparent when printing in black and white (the paper is the white in B&W); but when printing in color, white is an actual color and is therefore opaque. This can manifest itself as the image covering the text or text covering the image because the white space is now considered to be a color rather than transparent. Due to this, color overlays have very limited application. You will get the best results by using a cropped page segment using the Clip Limit settings in the AFP driver.