Technical Memo: Selecting Optional Letter Trays On A PostScript Printer

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SELECTING OPTIONAL LETTER TRAYS ON A POSTSCRIPT PRINTER

revised: Apr. 27, 2004

Special setup is sometimes required for PostScript printers which have 2 or more trays of the same type, especially when media type semantics are not available.

ScriptServer® for OpenVMS uses the PostScript level 1 operators "lettertray", "legaltray", etc., to select the paper tray, and for legacy reasons ScriptServer® PAN Printing System may do the same; there is no way to refer to two trays of the same size using this mechanism when media types are not available.

For level 2 (and later) printers, tray position 2 can be selected with the following PostScript commands:

<</MediaPosition 2>> setpagedevice

The tray numbers (or "media positions") assigned to particular trays are different between the various models of PostScript language printers. On many printers, the first (default) tray is at position 0. Manual feed slots are also considered "media positions", causing further difficulty in determining tray numbers for alternate input trays.

The best authority for determining media positions associated with particular input trays is the printer's PPD (PostScript Printer Description) file, which is usually distributed with the printer. PPD files are normally available for download from the various manufacturers' websites. The contents of PPD files can be conveniently parsed and viewed with the PAN Resource Builder application, which is distributed with ScriptServer PAN software.

In addition, GrayMatter Software provides a PostScript file named PAPERTRAY.PS which can be used to identify the tray numbers in PostScript printers or when media type semantics are not available.

The following techniques work for both text files and PostScript files, with the exception of PostScript files which contain explicit commands that override the commands in the resource or page setup module.

ScriptServer® PAN Printing System

The PostScript fragment can be defined and used as a resource. Use the PAN Resource Builder application to load the PPD for the printer in question and upload the resource to the appropriate resource set.

ScriptServer® for OpenVMS

The following steps show how to select the optional paper tray using theVMS DEFINE/FORM facility. In this example, we want to select from tray 2 (see your printer's technical documentation for the correct tray numbers).

1) Create a text file (for example, TRAY2.PS) containing the PostScript commands needed to select the desired paper tray.

2) Insert the text file into the ScriptServer device control library. All ScriptServer queues must be stopped before you can do this.

$ LIBRARY/REPLACE SYS$LIBRARY:SSV$DEVCTL.TLB TRAY2.PS
This will create a text module named TRAY2 in the device control library.

3) Define a VMS form to associate with the desired paper tray. You must choose a unique form name and number (type SHOW QUEUE/FORM to see what forms are defined on your system). In this example, we are defining a form called LETTERHEAD, with a form number of 17.
$ DEFINE/FORM/STOCK=DEFAULT/SETUP=TRAY2 LETTERHEAD 17
The /SETUP qualifier associates the page setup module you just created with the VMS form you are defining. The setup module will be sent to the printer at the beginning of each page

4) To print a file using the optional paper tray (assuming the queue name is LASER and the file is MYFILE.LIS):
$ PRINT/QUEUE=LASER/FORM=LETTERHEAD MYFILE.LIS