Printer emulation makes use of the Telnet printer pass-through mode supported by both Newlook and IBM i systems. This means any Windows printer can be used as a virtual printer device and connected to the host system using TCP/IP.
Once connected, any spool data that appears on the nominated host system OUTQ will be printed on the client specified PC printer, which can either be a local or network printer linked to a PC running Newlook.
You can configure a Newlook printer connection by selecting Connections from the Developer Bar and adding a new connection definition.
At a minimum the following options must be specified:
Host Print Transform determines whether the host system formats the files prior to printing. If this option is not checked, SCS printing will be used and formatting will be handled by Newlook/Windows.
Typically, if your printer is supported by the host system, you should select the Host Print Transform option. If your printer is not supported by the host system, or if you want to print spool files that contain Double Byte Characters then you should select No to Host Print Transform and use the default SCS printing option.
To check whether your printer is supported by the host system, select the Host Print Transform. Under the Host Print Transform section, expand the Manufacturer, type, model field to see if your printer type is in the list.
If you opt for Host Print Transform, as a minimum, you must enter your printer model in the Manufacturer, type and model field.
The following host system items must be configured to support printer emulation:
A print spooler is a program that accepts print jobs (usually one or more files) from a program or network interface, stores them in a spool queue, and then sends them to a printer or another print spooler. Usually there are facilities to submit jobs, check on the current job status, remove jobs from spool queues, and perform administrative functions such as starting or stopping printing.
A print spooler is a client/server application. The client programs are used to submit jobs to the print spooler program which performs the actual printing operations. In order to carry out these operations, the server may need to use other programs to convert print job files into a format acceptable to a printer, or perform various accounting or administrative functions.
Spooled files that are printed using emulation printing will typically be sent to the destination printer in an unencrypted form. This means that you will need to be careful if you are going to use an untrusted TCP/IP network (such as the Internet) to print sensitive information.
It is possible to secure printer traffic by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that will ensure that the data sent is properly protected. VPNs can be implemented using the IBM i Firewall or other products such as Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol (PPTP). Additionally Newlook allows sessions to be encrypted using SSL thereby enabling secure emulation printer sessions.
© 2004-2021 looksoftware. All rights reserved.