ScriptServer for OpenVMS - Frequently Asked Questions
Index
What is ScriptServer?
How does ScriptServer integrate into OpenVMS
printing?
What does ScriptServer do for me?
What printers does ScriptServer support?
How is ScriptServer different from DCPS?
What are the components of ScriptServer?
What are ScriptServer Electronic (Software) Forms?
How is ScriptServer licensed?
How is ScriptServer software self-configuring?
What is the SCRIPT facility?
How does ScriptServer handle fonts?
How does ScriptServer support printer hard disks?
What types of paper-handling features does ScriptServer
support?
What printer features does ScriptServer support?
What types of connections does ScriptServer support?
What kind of feedback does ScriptServer provide?
What is ScriptServer?
ScriptServer is a software package that provides full-function printing
capabilities under OpenVMS. It allows you to connect virtually any PostScript-
and/or PCL-based printer to your IA-64, Alpha AXP, or VAX system, without having
to sacrifice printer functionality or performance.
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How does ScriptServer integrate into OpenVMS printing?
ScriptServer software integrates seamlessly into the OpenVMS environment.
The central component of ScriptServer is the symbiont, which acts as the
'processor' for an OpenVMS queue. The user interface, the SCRIPT facility,
uses the same command qualifiers as the standard PRINT command, plus many
more that access the enhanced functionality available to ScriptServer users.
When printing PostScript, PCL, and ASCII files that don't require special
formatting, the standard PRINT command can be used to enter jobs into ScriptServer
queues.
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What does ScriptServer do for me?
ScriptServer gives you the freedom to choose your OpenVMS printers without
having to worry about whether your printing software will support the particular
capabilities of the printer. In addition, it lets you:
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What printers does ScriptServer support?
ScriptServer supports any printer based on the PostScript and PCL page
description languages. Since the software automatically determines your
printers' capabilities, such as page description language(s), color, duplexing,
fonts, etc., you can be sure your users get the most of your printers with
a minimum of configuration.
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How is ScriptServer different from DCPS?
Digital's DCPS (DECprint Supervisor) was originally created to support
Digital LPS series printers using Digital's proprietary CPAP (DECnet-based)
network printing protocol. It supports a limited number of third-party printing
products over conventional serial and LAT connections.
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What are the components of ScriptServer?
ScriptServer software consists of the print symbiont, which handles communication
with the printer, the SCRIPT facility, which provides the menu interface
for faxing and ASCII translation, the EPS2FORM utility, which converts EPS
files to PostScript Level 2 forms, a configuration utility, and the Network
Console, which allows the management and monitoring of ScriptServer queues
from a Windows 95 or Windows NT computer.
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What are ScriptServer "Laser Forms?"
ScriptServer Laser Forms allow you to replace your pre-printed business
forms with PostScript software forms that are generated automatically on-the-fly.
ScriptServer software includes the EPS2FORM utility, which takes your Encapsulated
PostScript (EPS) file and converts it to PostScript Level 2 form, which is used
as a backdrop to your ASCII print file.
A major advantage of Electronic Forms, in addition to the savings in pre-printed
forms, is that the form resides in your printer (either permanently or for the
duration of the print job) and is transmitted to the printer only once.
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How is ScriptServer licensed?
There are a variety of licensing options for ScriptServer software. The
most frequently used is per-node licensing, in which a single OpenVMS computer
is licensed for any number of ScriptServer print queues. If the computer
is a member of a VMScluster, the entire cluster must be licensed, since
all nodes in the cluster have access to the print queues throughout the
cluster. License options include the Network Option, which supports printing
to most network-based printers, and the DQS option, which supports Digital's
Distributed Queueing System software.
Site-based and company-wide licensing is also available.
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How is ScriptServer software self-configuring?
When a ScriptServer queue starts up, it conducts a dialog with the printer,
determining its various capabilities, and associating the capabilities with
the print queue in the form of OpenVMS queue characteristics. This allows
print jobs to be automatically routed to the printer with the required capabilities.
Among the capabilities determined at queue start-up are:
- paper sizes
- fonts
- duplexing
- color/monochrome
- printer languages
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What is the SCRIPT facility?
The SCRIPT facility allows you to control how files are converted from
ASCII to PostScript during printing. Its default mode of operation is menu
mode, but also allows you access to all of its features from the command
line. Among the over forty parameters you can access in the SCRIPT facility
are:
- primary font (used for the body of the file)
- secondary font (for headings and page numbering)
- vertical line spacing
- margins
- paper size and orientation
- duplexing
- n-up printing
- headings and heading location
- page numbering and numbering location
- print queue
- print after time
- form
- notify
- flag pages
- lines per page
- delete after printing
- completion notification
- line justification and wrap
Furthermore, the SCRIPT facility can be used to associate SCRIPT settings
with print queues, OpenVMS forms, or on a system-wide basis so that users
can access these features using the PRINT command.
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How does ScriptServer handle fonts?
ScriptServer provides full access to printer-based PostScript fonts.
It also supports font downloading to printer RAM and to the printer's hard
disk, if present. Permanently downloaded fonts are checked at queue startup,
and only downloaded if not already present in the printer. Also, fonts can
be downloaded on a job-specific basis using the PRELOAD parameter with the
PRINT command.
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How does ScriptServer support printer hard disks?
With ScriptServer software you can copy an OpenVMS file to a printer
hard disk. You can also rename and delete files on the disk. Also, PostScript
files can be executed and fonts can be downloaded to the hard disk so that
they are permanently available.
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What types of paper-handling features does ScriptServer support?
ScriptServer allows you to select paper trays using the SHEET_SIZE parameter
with the PRINT command. Using the SCRIPT facility,
you can also associate paper sizes with OpenVMS form names, so that they
can be accessed using the PRINT/FORM command.
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What printer features does ScriptServer support?
ScriptServer gives you direct access to virtually any feature available
on your printers, including duplexing, fonts, envelope feeders, and paper
trays. Because ScriptServer uses a device control library that you can add
your own commands to, you can extend and modify how the ScriptServer print
symbiont accesses printer features.
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What types of connections does ScriptServer support?
One of ScriptServer's greatest strengths lies in its communications flexibility.
You can connect to printers using the following types of connections:
- parallel
- serial
- LAT
- Telnet
- TCP/IP lpd
- QMS Status1
- QMS Crown
- ScriptServer PDF Broker (for automatic distribution of electronic documents)
- Repository (creates documents on disk rather than sent to printer)
- foreign queue (send output to another queue)
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What kind of feedback does ScriptServer provide?
Whenever a queue-specific problem occurs (such as a paper jam) it alerts
the system administrator by generating an OPCOM message, and it sends both
the OPCOM message and an alarm message to the Network
Console.
When a job-specific problem occurs (such as a PostScript error) the ScriptServer
print symbiont generates a Print Log at end of the job that tells what error
occured and when it was detected by the symbiont.
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