Question

Does anyone know of a freeware solution to convert AFP to PDF on the AS400

Asked by: norwoodhelpdesk

We have several applications that need to send printouts to customers via fax and email. The best format to send to them is to convert the document to PDF and then send. This in not an issue. We are using CVT2PDF to convert the documents and SNDDST to send them out. This works fine for text printouts. What we want to do is add overlays to the printouts to make them more formlike. The problem with this is that CVT2PDF won't convert an AFP printout (one with overlays) to PDF.
Does anyone know of a freeware solution to convert an AS400 printout with AFP (advanced function printing) to a PDF?

Thanks.

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Asked On
2009-10-13 at 08:02:22ID24808016
Tags

AFP

,

PDF

,

AS400 printing

Topic

Programming for iSeries / AS400

Participating Experts
2
Points
250
Comments
9

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Answers

 

by: Gary_The_IT_ProPosted on 2009-10-13 at 10:34:29ID: 25562211

http://www.mcpressonline.com/tips-techniques/document-management/techtip-spooled-files-and-pdf-part-four.html

Earlier techtips in this series offer related utilities, like SCS2PDF, and SCS2TEXT:

http://www.mcpressonline.com/tips-techniques/document-management/

You may need to sign up for a free account at MCPressOnline to read the articles and download the code.

- Gary Patterson

http://www.experts-exchange.com/M_4382324.html

 

by: stevebowdoinPosted on 2009-10-14 at 05:54:09ID: 25569879

OS/400 6.1
There is a new feature on the OVRPRTF.

OVRPRTF FILE(YOURFILE)          
        TOSTMF('\yourpath.pdf')
        WSCST(*PDF)            

Steve Bowdoin
www.bowdoin.com

 

by: Gary_The_IT_ProPosted on 2009-10-14 at 08:54:15ID: 25571959

Heres' a good article that explains the pre-requisites of the new V6R1 native PDF support:  

http://systeminetwork.com/article/generate-pdf-files-using-only-i-61-0

- Gary Patterson

Check out my EE profile:  http://www.experts-exchange.com/M_4382324.html

 

by: norwoodhelpdeskPosted on 2009-10-19 at 04:32:42ID: 25604202

Thanks for your comments. Gary, I've already loaded those programs. They don't do the whole job. Steve and Gary, we are on V5R2M0 and have no plans to upgrade, so the newer commands would not help.

Thanks anyway. I'll continue searching and close out this question.

Don Friday

 

by: norwoodhelpdeskPosted on 2009-10-19 at 05:01:42ID: 25604347

Let me ask the question a different way. Does anyone have the source code for the following programs:

AFP2PDFC *PGM CLLE Convert AFP to PDF
AFP2PDFD *PGM RPGLE Convert AFP to PDF
AFP2TIFFR *PGM RPGLE Convert AFP to PDF
AFPRES *FILE PF-DTA
AFP2PDF *CMD Convert AFP to PDF
TIFF2PDF *PGM CLE V3.7.2

Don Friday

 

by: Gary_The_IT_ProPosted on 2009-10-19 at 05:52:59ID: 25604673

Don,

What do you mean, specifically, when you say "don't do the whole job"?

Where did the objects listed above (AFP2PDFC, AFP2PDFD, AFP2TIFFR, etc.) come from?

You might also try this freeware utility:  http://www.easy400.net/mmailh/othutils.htm#cvtsplfpdf

Finally, you can always create a Client Access printer session that prints to any of the many commercial and freeware PDF printer drivers:


- Gary Patterson


 

by: norwoodhelpdeskPosted on 2009-10-19 at 12:17:21ID: 25608092

Gary,

SCS2PDF does not allow overlays on the output. It also does not allow AFP. I currently have the other open source, CVT2PDF, and it works fine for the text, but again will not allow overlays or AFP. The objects that start with AFP were originally written by a programmer in Italy, and I have tried to contact him. The links to them that I have found are no longer valid. I think IBM may have implemented this code in later versions of their OS, but again, we are not able to upgrade from our current version.

What I'm trying to do is eliminate costs. We currently have a product called FastFax which does the job, but we want to get out of the annual maintenance cost involved with it, if possible.

Don

 

by: Gary_The_IT_ProPosted on 2009-10-19 at 14:03:55ID: 25609023

Don,

AFP2PDF

I understand exactly what you want to do.   I've used numerous flavors of commercial, freeware, PC based, IBM-supplined, and self-written PDF utilities for the AS/400 in the past, including Guiseppe Costagliola's AFP2PDF utility.

Your are right, the SCS2PDF utility is for SCS files (hence the name...), not AFP.  Once you add an overlay to a SCS file, you've got an AFP file, from a rendering perspective.

I was suggesting the AFP2PDF utility that is mentioned in that  first article link  I posted (written by Guiseppe Costagliola),  but I just checked and the download link for the zip file contain the source code appears to be broken.  Report the broken link to the good folks at MCPressOnline.com and maybe they can help you.  The file is probably out there on their server someplace.

http://www.mcpressonline.com/tips-techniques/document-management/techtip-spooled-files-and-pdf-part-four.html

CVTSPLFPDF

Also, the CVTSPLFPDF utility that I mentioned in my last post converts both SCS and AFP to PDF.  If you can't find a place to download the AFP2PDF source code, it looks like the code for CVTSPLFPDF is there.

IBM Options

As far as IBM options go:

Pre-V6R1, IBM offers PDF conversion services in the InfoPrint LPP.  If I recall correctly there was a free trial for V5R2, but after the trial period it costs.  You may want to talk to your IBM rep about cost - it may be cheaper than what you are doing now.

In V6R1, a basic PDF conversion facility is available as part of base OS support,  as Steve B. mentions above.

Inexpensive Commercial Alternatives

There are also some very nice inexpensive commercial alternatives.  I like Brad Stone's excellent AFPTOOL:  www.bvstools.com
PDFing is also relatively cheap:  www.pdfing.com

Other stuff:

It isn't difficult to write your own basic conversion utility.  IBM provides an API to convert AFP files to TIFF (see Guiseppe's article above), and you can then use any of a blue million PC free or cheap utilities to convert the Tiff to PDF format.

You can also use various printing tricks, like using Host Print Transform to transform your AFP spooled files to PCL, pointing to a Windows or Linux utility that can handle the PCL to PDF conversion for you.

Negotiate with your current vendor of just drop support

If you are willing to assume the support responsibilities by switching to free software anyway, and you are on a stable system with no upgrade plans, consider dropping support on FastFax.  

Also consider contacting  Quadrant (FastFax publisher) and tell them that you are considering dropping them due to maintenance costs, and try to negotiate a lower fee, or a limited or hourly support option.  I've worked for software houses that would do this to retain customers on their systems in hopes of future upgrade dollars.

- Gary Patterson

 

by: norwoodhelpdeskPosted on 2009-11-13 at 09:29:35ID: 31640589

With this link, I was able to find and download the entire MMAIL system. Thanks!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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