I'm working in a company that has a Java printing server,
which parses PCL files by it self and looks for a Page-Separator (and some other things, like tray commands) in the files and so on...

I've encountered a problem with a certain Pcl file that has 24 pages separators but it's actually 26 pages (cause the offset is big enough in 2 pages to pass to a next page when it's actually printed!)

So what I want to do, is to check the length of a Pcl file (for each page) and see if it passes a certain value to say it's a next page (even without having the Page-separator command)

... what is the maximum side of A4 page in Pcl?? (I mean byte size of course :p )

can anybody help??

E.D
ALPHA-CSP Software Engineer

What is the application that is generating the print data?

Usually, the PCL (guessing 5e) emulator is looking for 0xc to print the page. It expects the application that generates the print file to insert the print page command.

If a page slips by without a page break, then I would expect that it contains image data.

Is there any chance that you can send me a "Print to File" of the data file and send it to me at [email protected] I can look at it with some of the diagnostic tools I still have.

By the way, PostScript uses the "ShowPage" operator to tell its emulator to put the spots on the page.

Don

The application generating the print data is SQR, which produces a pcl file.
When I send the pcl to the printer (using LPR command) the pages shift correctly and naturally the printer prints all the page correctly as well.
We also have a pclToPdf converter (Lincpdfc from Lincoln co )
And it also produces a pdf with the right number of pages and in the right order.
But!! When using a pcl decoder, a third party or our own (we also wrote our own decoder in java) to read the page insert commands (in rare cases) are not the same as the real number of pages the document contains.
Like you said, a page slips by without a page break command.

I assumed the page break the converter does got something to do with the size of text available in an A4 page and the margin and all the rest... (our default printout) is it so??
And is there a way to certainly know that the page ended and another begins when self parsing the pcl file?

Thanks for your generous help :)

Eldad.

The PCL emulator will parse a page based on the "Linesperpage" setting from the application, or in your case the converter.

I'd really need to see the actual data file to see why it is falling on its blade.

Also, there are actually two sizes of A4 paper, which one are you using.

One other thought, when you convert a file from PCL to Postscript (which is what a PDF file is) and then back to PCL, you can easily lose the one byte command to print a page. In PCL that is a 0xC.

Also, a new page can be forced if the PCL writes into the "No Print Zone" that surrounds the printer.

There is really no clean way to parse PCL into PostScript because they are both ASCII based emulations.

Again if you can get me a copy of the PCL and PDF data files, I'll be happy to look at them.

I've tried to send you an example file, to the email you've supplied here... but it failed sending (Some delivery delay?? )
So can you give me another email address?
I have some great file for examples, I would really want for you to take a look.

Thanks.

I have two Ids. [email protected] and [email protected].

You may want to send smaller files, maybe compress them using a zip file converter.

For programs that big, the email servers will likely barf. Use tools like Yousendit.com. The free one should get you by.

Hi Don, I've tried to sent you a simple text message with
no attached files... so I don't know what the problem is...
Anyhow, I've already found a simple but a suitable solution to my problem.

So 10x for your help anyway...
I may need it in the future :) Hope you'll have no objections

Eldad.

Elad,

No problems at all.