Forms Card

Features

The following information is a supplement to the instructions provided in the Forms and Bar Code Card User’s Guide :

Adding fonts to existing printer objects

Users can add fonts to printer objects in Forms Manager without having to delete and then recreate the printer object.

Loading forms to a flash drive

Users can download forms to a flash drive. This feature is accessible through the Copy Formsets menu when a flash drive is inserted in the printer. Users can copy all the formsets from the flash drive to the currently configured formsmerge device.

Capturing data to a flash drive

Forms Card enables the printer to capture and send data to a flash drive. The user can enable data capture mode from the printer control panel.

This feature is accessible through the Forms Merge Mode menu.

Creating a PIN for formsets

Forms Card allows merging data with an encrypted formset. The user can specify a PIN for the formset during the upload. When the formset is downloaded to the printer, the user can enter the PIN from the printer control panel.

Note:  If a user enters an incorrect PIN three times, then the job is deleted and no output is printed. If no pin is provided, then the job is canceled.

Enhanced delimiter functionality

Enhanced delimiter functionality allows the user to do the following:

Adding cc and bcc to the e-mail function

Users can specify cc and bcc recipients when sending an e-mail through the printer.

Note:  This function is available only on multifunction products (MFPs) that support e-mail or fax.

Printing faxed or e-mailed documents

Users can print faxed or e-mailed documents.

Note:  This function is available only on MFPs that support e-mail or fax.

New version of PDFlib

Formsmerge and LDSS are updated to PDFlib version 8.0.2.

Controlling formsmerge on individual ports

Enhanced formsmerge controls make it easy for users to set them on individual ports.

New system variable—FORMSET@

The new system variable, FORMSET@, identifies the name of the formset currently in use. This variable allows the printer to have a debugging or troubleshooting capability similar to Optra Forms TM .

Hexadecimal values in PDF417 bar code

Forms Composer can encode ASCII or hexadecimal values in the header of a PDF417 bar code.

Note:  Formsmerge card accepts hexadecimal values in any bar code type.

Combined AS400 and OFIS filters

This version of Forms and Bar Code Card has combined AS400 and OFIS filters and an option to the PJL LSETINPUTFILTER command.

Removing leading FF and CR from the forms data

This feature is useful when a user wants to merge multiple data separated by FF or CR.

Disabling PJL LPORTROTATE

The PJL LPORTROTATE command is not supported when Forms and Bar Code Card is installed.

Disabling Merge Mode while downloading formsets

When downloading formsets with Merge Mode enabled, the formsets are scanned as normal incoming data. This behavior significantly lengthens the time it takes to download formsets to the printer. To improve download time, Forms Manager sends a PJL DISABLEMERGEMODE command to disable Merge Mode while downloading formsets.

Merging is automatically enabled when the formsets download is complete.

Enhanced page delimiters

Forms Card allows extra parsing capability of the input data stream. The datamap function allows the following:

Faxing and e-mailing merged output

Forms Card can fax or e-mail merged output instead of printing it. This feature is accessible through setting the WorkFlowVars tag in the LFF file for the formset.

Note:  This function is available only on MFPs that support e-mail or fax.

Selecting ports that Forms Card listens to

Forms Card listens to and merges on printer input ports that users can select. This feature is accessible through the Print Port Setting menu.

Using forms stored on a flash drive

Users can plug a flash drive into the front USB port on a supported printer and use formsets stored on that flash drive for formsmerge operations.

RFID support

Through Lexmark Forms Job Ticket (LFJT) support, Forms Card allows users to specify RFID printer options when printing a merged e-form. LFJT is a simple XML format for specifying those options.

LFJT is embedded into the merged PDF by the Forms Card firmware. The PDF interpreter inside the printer parses the PDF.

Note:  This feature is available only on printers that support RFID functionality.

Printing all forms

Users can print information about all the formsets stored on the printer and some printer-specific information. This feature is accessible through the Print All Forms menu.

Note:  If a .PPF file exists for the formset, then the paper tray and bin information is read from the .PPF file and listed under the .PPF file name.

Vertical text centering

Users can set vertical text centering in Forms Manager. Users can center-align text objects vertically, eliminating using extra lines within the text element to push the text downward. The text is aligned within the boundaries of the object.

Data types

Forms and Bar Code Card accepts three types of data: text, SAP Raw Data Interface (RDI), and TAGJOB.

Users may incorporate other data streams by using a data filter to remove characters. For more information, see Data filters .

Data filters

If a data filter is enabled, then the incoming forms job is run through that filter before the card processes it.

Data filter

Description

Disabled

Indicates that all data filters are off.

NULL

Removes all null characters from the data stream.

OFIS

Removes the following Optra Forms init strings from the data stream:

<0x1B>%-12345X@PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=POSTSCRIPT
<0x01>M%PS
(LexForm) run Bs

or

%!PS-ADOBE
(LexForm) run startup

OFIS + NULL

Removes all null characters and Optra Forms init strings.

AS400

Removes extraneous lines of data due to AS400 formatting.

PCL

Removes all PCL 5 emulation escape sequences and leaves the text data.

ZPL

Removes all ZPL escape sequences and leaves the text data.

ZPL-F

Performs the same actions as ZPL, except that it uses " @ " as the format instruction prefix.


Forms Card font support

For supported fonts, Forms Card uses the appropriate font file.

For recognized fonts, Forms Card applies a similar font file.

For unsupported fonts, Forms Card does not print them.

Simplified Chinese is a supported double-byte character set (DBCS) language. The SimHei and the SimSun fonts are supported. For more information on supported and recognized fonts and font files, see Single-byte Forms Card fonts .

Bubble font

This font is used for standardized testing forms that are optically read for grading purposes. It is available in Forms Composer when OCR-B in Bubble font is used.

The following is a character map for use while designing the formset:

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

2A

2B

2C

2D

2E

2F

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

3A

3B

3C

3D

3E

3F

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

4A

4B

4C

4D

4E

4F

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

5A

5B

5C

5D

5E

5F

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

6A

6B

6C

6D

6E

6F

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

7A

7B

7C

7D

7E

7F

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

8A

8B

8C

8D

8E

8F

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

9A

9B

9C

9D

9E

9F

A0

A1

A2

A3

A4

A5

A6

A7

A8

A9

AA

AB

AC

AD

AE

AF

B0

B1

B2

B3

B4

B5

B6

B7

B8

B9

BA

BB

BC

BD

BE

BF

C0

C1

C2

C3

C4

C5

C6

C7

C8

C9

CA

CB

CC

CD

CE

CF

D0

D1

D2

D3

D4

D5

D6

D7

D8

D9

DA

DB

DC

DD

DE

DF

E0

E1

E2

E3

E4

E5

E6

E7

E8

E9

EA

EB

EC

ED

EE

EF

F0

F1

F2

F3

F4

F5

F6

F7

F8

F9

FA

FB

FC

FD

FE

FF


Determining printable characters

Forms and Bar Code Card supports multiple code pages. For more information on supported fonts, see Single-byte Forms Card fonts .

Because the user’s computer font list is richer than the printer font list, a user can easily create a form where not all characters are printed. The user can stipulate a supported code page using Forms Composer.

The following font families support the international character set:

These font families complement any code page selected and result in almost every character printing.

When printing a formset that uses an international character set, print a sample first to make sure that all the characters are printable.

Printing errors

If an error occurs, then forms jobs are not printed. If "Error page Print" is on, then the error page is printed.

After the error is cleared, the print job continues to print unless another error occurs.

For print jobs with multiple errors, each error must be cleared individually.

Sample error page

 A sample error page

For a list of error codes and their solutions, see Error messages and their types and solutions .

Forms files on printer directory

Forms and Bar Code Card places forms files on the printer in the formsmerge directory. These files are visible if the user prints a directory page from the printer control panel.

Do not tamper with these files.

Chart support

Forms and Bar Code Card supports pie, horizontal, and vertical (stacked and unstacked) charts.

Handling SAP RDI variables

Forms and Bar Code Card supports both hyphen and underscore variables.

Limitations

When a large number is used, the border area exceeds the chart border area.