Michael,
I get where you are coming from here, but my situation (maybe I didnt state it before) is that I have all the programs producing printed forms using PCL commands running fine, and I can intercept the spool files, and I cant justify re-writing anything (especially on the 3000) to get pdf files .
Our ERP system (iSeries) produces either paper, or emailed pdfs at user option, and there is pressure to enable some of this capability on the remaining 3000 systems that will take come time to migrate to the new system.
If I am asked to produce new outputs as pdf, I will certainly look into TCL as an option, for which info I thank you.
jp
________________________________________
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of michael [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, 18 September 2011 7:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] pcl spool files to .pdf ?
Another software solution for PDF generation from the HP3000 is:
http://www.hillary.com/byrequest
Also: Just to reiterate,
I previously used COBOL as en example and I keep forgetting that it is a
dead language.
What I was really showing you guys is Tcl. No other language is needed,
or, because Tcl can be called dynamically, you could use any language
you want. I was introduced to Tcl back in the 90's, and dismissed it as
a Mickey-mouse 4gl, man was I wrong. Re-introduced to it 3 years ago,
and I really regret not giving it a fair shake many years ago. It is a
very powerful, dynamic language. I use it for many things, including
SQL, HTTP, and much more.
The main point: To be able to create a pdf file, a real portable
document, from any language, and most all popular platforms, using
statements very similar to the PCL statements that you've been using on
the HP3000. The only difference is instead of sending the output to a HP
Printer to be interpreted, you would send it to a Tcl interpreter, the
end result is a pdf file.
It's so easy a caveman can do it, all you need is Tcl, and it is free.
_To create a new pdf file:_
pdf4tcl::new mypdf -paper a4 -margin 15mm
mypdf startPage
_Line drawing:_
mypdf line 0 0 $width 0
mypdf line 0 0 0 $height
mypdf line $width 0 $width $height
mypdf line 0 $height $width $height
_Shading & area fill:_
mypdf setLineStyle 0.2 1 0
mypdf setStrokeColor #BBBBBB
mypdf setFillColor #EDFFEA
mypdf rectangle 0 $mycol $width 24 -filled 1
_Fonts & textual data:_
mypdf setFont 8 Helvetica
mypdf text "SOMEDATA:" -x 0 -y 12
mypdf setFont 12 "Helvetica-Bold"
mypdf text "SOME MOREDATA" -align center -x [expr {$width/2.0}] -y 12
mypdf setFont 8 Helvetica
mypdf text "DATA $variable" -align right -x $width -y 12
mypdf setFillColor 0 0 0
There is also so much more in the pdf4tcl package, more than PCL ever was.
I just had to be clear, this not a COBOL solution, it is a "any
language" solution.
--
Mike.
On 09/17/2011 03:45 PM, michael wrote:
> This process somehow renders a pdf?
>
> Could you explain?
>
> Thanks,
> Mike.
>
>
> On 09/17/2011 12:28 PM, Johnson, Tracy wrote:
>> Yes Sanface software DOES have that limitation, but you can prep your
>> spool files with the old contributed SF2HTMLP program, then do another
>> pass with any old editor and remove the strings:<HTML>,<BODY>, and
>> <LISTING>.
>>
>> Tracy Johnson
>> Office (757) 766-4318
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of michael
>> Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 12:48 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] pcl spool files to .pdf ?
>>
>> John,
>>
>> There is SANFACE Software, http://www.sanface.com/ but I'm pretty sure
>> its limited to Text to PDF, not PCL to PDF.
>>
>> Then there is openpcl, written in Java, but I haven't tried it. Looks
>> complicated! http://openpcl.sourceforge.net/
>>
>> What I've done on NON MPE platforms is modify the report program to use
>> Tcl, see TCLEVEL& TCLINIT, with a tcl package called pdf4tcl.
>> Using COBOL I'll call TCLINIT, and TCLEVAL, or TCLEVALFILE; works great
>> to create PDF's directly from COBOL, NOT on MPE, unless someone has
>> ported Tcl to MPE.
>>
>> Lars? If perl& java were ported, then Tcl should be a piece a cake,
>> right? ;-)
>>
>> Basically the COBOL program (Cobol-IT / OpenCOBOL) writes out this file
>> http://www.j3ksolutions.com/pdf/pdfsource.tcl
>> Then the COBOL program passes it to tcl, and tcl creates this:
>> http://www.j3ksolutions.com/pdf/formlist.pdf from the above source tcl
>> file.
>>
>> If you're at all curious you can look at the COBOL source,
>> http://www.j3ksolutions.com/pdf/FRMLIST.cbl
>> Look for a paragraph called: Create-New-PDF.
>>
>> For what its worth, COBOL is alive, and doing well. Example of Cobol, on
>> Windows/Unix reading Sqllite and writing to pdf.
>>
>> Seems to me you could FTP your spoolfiles to Linux/Windows, do something
>> similar to my example, to read your spoolfiles, and write out the
>> pdfsource.tcl that represents the PCL found in the spoolfile. Thats what
>> I would do..... ummm.
>>
>> Notice the COBOL "free" source format, no seq numbers and no column
>> constraints,
>>
>> Now for something completely different,
>> Mike.
>>
>> On 09/16/2011 05:47 PM, John Pitman wrote:
>>> Does anybody have any experience they can pass on here please?
>>> We have some fairly complex (in terms of lines and fonts) documents
>> printed to paper (PCL5), but there is a request now to convert them to
>> pdfs for emailing....
>>> I see there are products offered, but would feel happier if I had some
>> guidance to ones that are known to work...
>>> thanks
>>> john
>>>
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