Printer forms can be designated in an effort to prevent your printer from printing a print job on the wrong paper. The printer forms you define are used as you set up print job configurations. For example, you might want some jobs to be printed on letter-size sheets of paper and others on green-bar continuous-feed paper.
Printer forms include information about the length and width of different types of paper used in your printer. The print server operator is notified when a form change is needed. Printer forms are configured in PRINTDEF or NetWare Administrator.
When a print job requests a printer form other than the form currently mounted in the printer, the print server does not service the job until a print server operator reports that the new form is mounted. A print server operator can use PCONSOLE, PSC, or NetWare Administrator to mount the new form.
Printer form names must begin with an alphabetic character and can have up to 12 alpha-numeric characters. Numbers can range from 0 to 254. Length can range from 1 to 255. Width can range from 1 to 999. These numbers are for your reference only.
NOTE: Printer forms are stored in the Directory Services database. In bindery mode, printer forms are stored in a file named PRINTDEF.DAT in SYS:PUBLIC.
From the PRINTDEF Available Options menu, select Printer Forms.
A list of the forms that have been defined for printing appears.
Press <Insert>, then type the name of the new form you want to define in the Forms Definition Form entry box and press <Enter> .
The first character of the form name must be alphabetic, and the form name cannot exceed 12 characters. Examples of form names include White_8x11, Continuous, Checks, Green_Bar, and Standard.
Type the number you want to assign to the form and press <Enter> .
You should probably assign the most commonly used form as form 0, because 0 is the default form. Form numbers must fall between 0 and 255.
Type the length of the form in lines per page and press <Enter> .
The number must fall between 1 and 255. This number is for your reference only. Use a number that makes sense to you. For example, if your printer is set to 6 lines per inch and your paper measures 8.5 by 11 inches, you might select 66.
Type the width of the form in characters per line and press <Enter> .
The number must fall between 1 and 999. This number is for your reference only. Use a number that makes sense to you. For example, if your printer is set to 10 characters per inch and your paper measures 8.5 by 11 inches, you might select 85.
To save changes, press <F10> .
To see which forms have been defined for your printers in PRINTDEF, select Printer Forms from the Available Options menu.
A list of the forms that have been defined for printing appears.
To see what parameters have been set for a specified form, complete the following steps.
From the PRINTDEF Available Options menu, select Printer Forms.
A list of the forms that have been defined for printing appears.
Select the form whose definition you want to view.
The Forms Definition window appears. It contains the form's name, the number you assigned to it, and the form's length and width.
While both a form name and form number are specified when the form is created or modified, only the number can be specified when you are are mounting a form.
After a printer form has been created, it must be mounted before the print server will recognize it. Printer forms can be mounted from the Print Server Console, from PCONSOLE, from NetWare Administrator, or from the command line using PSC.
Mounting a printer form consists of two elements:
Changing the paper NetWare has no way of determining whether the paper was actually changed or not. It relies in information it receives from the operator.
Mounting the form through the software This is the information that NetWare receives from the operator and that is required in order for printing to continue.
To mount a printer form, you need the following prerequisites:
The following paragraphs explain the different ways a form can be mounted through the software.
At the NetWare Server console, use <Alt><Esc> to toggle to the Print Server screen. Choose a specific printer from the Printer Status option of the Available Options menu. Highlight the Mounted form field in the printer information screen and type the number of the form you wish the printer to service. Print jobs using that form in the print queue will now print.
Enter PCONSOLE and choose a specific printer from the Printers option of the Available Options menu. Highlight the Printer Status field and press <Enter> . Highlight the Mounted form field in the printer information screen and type the number of the form you wish the printer to service. Print jobs in the print queue using that form will now print.
From the command line, issue the following:
PSC PS=printserver P=printernumber MO F=formnumber
For example:
PSC PS=.DALLAS.SALES.NOVELL P=2 MO F=1