Answers in this category:
How do I keep an Output from automatically printing Grand Totals?
Can I print a date in Julian format?
When I add rows at the frame level the rows on the image do not change.
Does APPX support printing a bar code on an output form?
How to get a setup grid on a PDF report?
How to format a date to automatically display day of week or month of year!
Can I format the date on automatic OUTPUT header(s)?
Why are my labels in an output PDF report being truncated?
How do I pass 'ESCape' sequences to my printer?
How to print duplex, print on front and back of each page
How to program an exception report, example of ALTERNATE IMAGE NUMBER
Can GRAND TOTAL be controlled via ILF
Additional help on PDF layout options
Now that I can generate PDF files from APPX, how can I get the PDF to display as such in a browser?
What is the best format to print a logo, images?
We need to be able to use a specific font to support an OCR scan line
HTML tags that can be used within a text field that is to be displayed with an HTML Viewer widget type via the APPX client.
Can I print an OCR font in a PDF document?
How to embed an image on an output?
I have upgraded to 4.2.6 recently and now my PDF output text is shifted
Is there a limit to the number of lines PAGE-END can have?
HTML in PDF Documents
How to create a PDF Form Overlay.

A display mask of "Monday January 05, 04:03 am" will (on 9/16/96) yield a displayed Date of "Monday September 16, 11:48 am".

A display mask of "05 January 0807" will (on 9/16/96) yield a displayed Date of "16 September 1996".

Also, the 'SET DATE' ilf command can extract the Day-of-the-Week or the Month-of-the-Year, as documented in ...

            http://www.appx.com/manuals/appl-dsgn/drm282.html

Date masks on OUTPUT Report Page Headings can be controlled by means of a
System-Parameter, or Application-override Date masks, and an environment
variable 'APPX STD PGH MASK'.

For Example:

If I have no System or Application date mask override set, and I run an
OUTPUT with a standard page heading, I get a page heading date (for example)
of "03/25/1999 00:16 23.83"

If I had set my System or Application date mask to 

"06/05/07 - 04:03:02.01"

I get a page heading date of

"03/25/99 - 00:16 23.83"

If you are trying to print using Adobe Acrobat, make sure that the image is not being modified by the viewer when it prints. In Acrobat 6.x, on the File/Print screen set Page Scaling to none, Auto Rotate to no, and Choose Paper Source to yes. Set the "Bitmap" ("Image" in English?) option under the Advanced button on the bottom-right of the Adobe print screen.

Also ensure that the form definition is defined and allows enough ‘grid’ space for the elements on the output page.

The ILF code ...

         CNV BIN  --- TEMP 1           = 27

 ... puts an "ESC" Escape character (hex(1b)) into TEMP 1.  You can then SET
this into an Alpha field, append other control codes as necessary, then embed
Alpha fields constructed in this manner in our OUTPUT report.

 ('ESCape' = Hex(1b) = 16 + 11 = decimal(27).)

See the ILF manual on the CNV BIN verb, for more detail on how it works.  

 www.appx.com > Support > Manuals > Application Design > Search > CNV BIN

On APPX/Windows platforms, you'll need to send a 'Form Control' of "-raw", in
order to tell the Windows Print Spooler not to filter out your escape codes.

WARNING:  Winprint interfaces to the printer's printer driver.  Some printer
drivers don't honor '-raw' pass through of hex codes.  The only way to find 
out is to try it.

If you need to hard code it in the body of your output file with escape/hex codes, you must turn on the -raw flag in the Form or Printer Control string.

WARNING: Winprint interfaces to the printer's printer driver. Some printer drivers don't honor '-raw' pass through of hex codes. The only way to find out is to try it.

           SET --- ALTERNATE IMAGE NUMBER = 0

Put the ILF that tests for exceptions below that. If a Record (or set of conditions in a Range-End frame) qualifies as an exception:

           SET --- ALTERNATE IMAGE NUMBER = 1

You can also issue MESSAGE, WARNING, ERROR, or CANCEL ILF commands at this point. Paint whatever fields and text you'd like on the OUTPUT Frame's Image, and you have a customized exception report!

The design spec, "Grand Totals", is used to set the following QSORT fields:

     QSORT SUBT
     QSORT SUBT NEW PG

They are set respectively as follows:

     NO       N,N
     STANDARD Y,N
     NEW PAGE Y,Y

Note that there are multiple QSORT records. This one is the one with QSORT SNO=0. The other QSORT records would be for the other "Sort Order" records. The field QSORT ACTV probably also needs set to 'Y'.

You're dealing with APPX internals here, so ASI does not provide support for the viewing and manipulation of these files. You're on your own.

Changing the content type tag in the CGI script to "application/pdf", which is the content type for *.pdf documents, will do the trick.

The high resolution means the image will be scaled down for the pdf form instead of up. Scaling formulas do a lot better job throwing away extra detail than they do creating detail where it doesn't exist.

The large color depth gives the formula a much better ability to anti- alias. If you are using a black and white (1 bit) color depth, it can't anti-alias at all and will always create a jagged border. If you are using straight black and white, just converting the image to a gray scale image will make a big difference in the result of scaling.

As for image processing software, you can use Adobe Photoshop. But almost any tool will allow you to alter the image color depth and save under a number of formats. If you have linux, it comes with a tool called "gimp" that is an open source knockoff of photoshop without the fancy user interface.

Is .JPG the 'best' file type? Or is there a better one? And for that matter, what other formats are acceptable (if any)?

For screens, you can use JPG, GIF, and PNG files. JPG's aren't good for line drawing (because the images are compressed with a lossy algorithm - sharp lines disappear).

GIF's are patent-encumbered.

If you want to include a resource image that has fine, crisp, details, you don't want to use JPG to store the image. JPG uses pixel averaging which distorts and drops out fine detail. Like very thin lines and such. JPG was create to store high color, low detail images like photographs.

PNG is the best bet. It's the newest if the three and does a fine job.

Go the the output editor and bring up your output image. In the Object Properties > GUI Attributes of the field there is a selection for Font (in Font Options box). This is a drop down list showing the fonts that are available to you. Select the font you want. Of course this has to be a PDF document for printing this report. If the font is not listed in the drop down, then the font will have to be installed on your machine.

For a new line, use CTL RETURN.

<p>               - new paragraph (does not require an ending </p>)
<pre> ... </pre>  - new paragraph with Courier font and fixed spacing
&nbsp             - fixed space (needed when not using <pre>)
<b> ... </b>      - bold
<i> ... </i>      - italic
<li> ... </li>    - each bullet
<ul> ... </ul>    - to indent bullets
<font size="n"> ... </font> where n=1-9 (1=8,2=10,3=12,4=14,5=18,6=24,7=36pt)

A good example of usage to look at is the new IF DIFF statement under 
System APPLICATION DESIGN, Subsystem ILF STATEMENTS.  
Remember, in INQ mode, you see the HTML tags applied; 
in CHG mode, you see the actual HTML tags coded.

   RESTORE  --- WIDGET                     DEFAULT RECORD
      SET      --- WIDGET PARENT TYPE         =      WIDGET
      SET      --- WIDGET WIDGET TYPE         =      PICTURE
      SET      --- WIDGET POSITION ROW        =      1
      SET      --- WIDGET POSITION COLUMN     =      2
      SET      --- WIDGET LOC OFFSET COL      =      -100
      SET      --- WIDGET SIZE ROWS           =      3
      SET      --- WIDGET SIZE COLUMNS        =      15
      SET      --- WIDGET RESOURCE TYPE       =      RESOURCE
      SET      --- WIDGET RESOURCE NAME       =      <your resource name>
      SET      --- WIDGET RESOURCE AP         =      <your app>
      SET      --- WIDGET TEXT POS HORIZ      =
      SET      --- WIDGET TEXT POS VERT       =
      SET      --- WIDGET TILING MODE         =      TILE
      WRITE    --- WIDGET                 FAIL 0

The <br> is ignored, and the text prints w/o a break.

I used a LABEL control type. This works fine in an input process.

What I am doing wrong?

 <br> is ignored...  

 <i> italics </i> <em> italics </em> <tt> tele-type font (courier) </tt> <small>
 next smaller font </small>

You will have to determine the scale of your image in relation to the form size that will be used for the output. It may be necessary to create a form in System Administration that is adequate for the overlay you are using. For this example, I have a form named PDF-6P10 that is a type PDF with form length of 60 and width of 80. The overlay image is a .png file named POForm.png.

Although Appx accepts jpg, gif and png images, the png format is the recommended image type to use.

1. The first step is to obtain or develop the electronic form you wish to use in your output process and create the Appx form definition as described above.

2. Copy the overlay file (POForm.png in this example) to the AppxPath/vv/aaa/Resource directory where vv is the application version and aaa is the application.

3. In Application Design add a Named Resource (PO FORM in this example). Make the State ENABLED and set the Type to Design File. The Location is the name of the overlay file, POForm.png. Note; match the case in the Location to that of the actual file name in the Resource directory. The image will not display if the name and case is not exactly the same.

4. Now create an output process. In my example I add a new output process called PRINT PO, Columns set to 80, Standard Page heading set to No, Column headings set to No, and remove the default Separator character (=).

5. Set the Preferred Form in Additional Attributes with the predefined form for this output process, PDF-6P10 in my example. If the default form is not set to the form name you have defined the printed result may not match your design.

6. Select PAGE-START for the first output image.

7. Set the length and width to match the form you will be using. In this example the form is length 60 and width of 80.

8. Navigate to the image editor.

9. Select the Picture icon from the toolbar and drag out a box the size of the display area.

10. Enter the Resource name you added above, PO FORM in this example (don’t forget to include the Application Id). Save these settings.

11. Page the image down (Cntl-down arrow) and drag the bottom of the Picture widget to the bottom of the display area. Repeat this step until you are at the bottom of the display area, line 60.

12. Go back to the top of the display area (Cntl-up arrow).

13. Edit the Picture properties and set the scale to a number that fits your liking. This might be a trail and error process until the overlay is exactly the way you want it. If necessary the overlay image may have to be adjusted using an editing tool such as MS Paint or PhotoShop.

14. Save the output image.

15. Return to the Frame level and set the length to 1, explanation below.

16. Add other frames as needed to complete the output process. On my PO FORM there is a place for repeating and non-repeating data. For the non-repeating fields, the top of the PO FORM, I set the Size of this frame to 21 by 80. There are 21 rows on the form before the repeating line items begin.

17. In the image area for ach frame add the fields, placing them at the approximate location to match your form. You can fine tune their locations while testing the process.

18. Create a Job process to include a Disposition. The Disposition Form Id must be the form you added for this output (PDF-6P10) and the Format must be PDF. You can set these parameters in Pre-Invocation of the Disposition job step for testing.

19. Run the job to test the output process and make adjustments as necessary.

The PAGE-START frame was changed back to 1 line after dragging the picture widget out so that the output would be a single page. PDF output cannot distinguish blank areas within a widget. If the length was left at 60 lines, the output would have printed the form as a page followed by the text on the second page based on my form and image sizes. By changing the length to 1 the output prints only one line, although the actual image extends beyond that. The text image then starts on line 2 of the output for the length indicated. The result is that your data is printed on top the overlay image on a single page.

The fit of the fields into the boxes of the form can be further refined by creating the text or fields as widgets and using micro adjustments to move the widgets into the exact location. Don’t forget you can also adjust the font type, size and color for each widget.