Urgent - File Size problem in Create!Print

Shrikanthn

Well Known Member
Hi

We are using Create!Form 3.1.5.0.5259 on Wintel JDE ERP 8.0 SP23. Our problem is that when we send a printout to Create!Email, the size of the file is for eg. 250 kb but when we send the same document to a printer using Create!Print, it expands exponentially to 5MB.

This is baffling to say the least. On a WAN environment this is even more difficult to accept.

Does anybody have any ideas as to why this is happening and how we can make the printout file to be the same size as the email attachment?

Your urgent response will be highly appreciated

Best regards
Shrikanth
 
Hello Shrikanth,

The first thing I would verify is the configuration of the Create!form Server print queues.

- When PDF output from E1 gets processed (for print or email) are both configurations using the same resources? A merged document may look the same in Acrobat Reader but have different file sizes because resources are obtained from different locations.

- What is the output format for jobs destined for print (Postscript, Text, PCL or PDF)?

- Where are you seeing the 5mg size for print jobs? Is it possible that the printer driver is adding unnecessary information to the print stream?


These are my thoughts to start... hope it helps!


Karen.
 
Shrikanth: is the printer that is receiving the output using a PCL driver? If so, then it is likely because Ghostscript is being invoked on the queue to transform what would normally be Postscript output to PCL. When this happens the files sizes are much bigger. Also, if this is the case, you could see if there is a driver for the printer that is Postscript based.

If this is not the case, please post back (include the printer make and model) and I'll see if there is some other reason that springs to mind.
 
hi Karen & Guerin

Thanks a lot for responding. I posed your questions to my tech colleague and he told me that we have a fairly complicated CF setup. Since we need to print in Simplified Chinese fonts, it seems we were recommended to have the following setup
For each physical printer, we need to setup 2 printers in CF. One is a PS driver printer (eg CPrint5200) and another PCL driver printer (eg CAny5200).

Cprint5200 uses a print processor called Cfprint. Has a driver called HP Laserjet 5200 PS and an output format PostScript

CAny5200 has a print processor as CFAnyPort and driver as HP LaserJet 5200 PCL6

Both printers are physically the same printer!

When CreateStream is invoked, it first calls the postscript printer CPrint5200. This printer in turn calls the PCL printer CAny5200.

Hence it seems that this complicated setup could be the genesis of our huge file size. If we have to continue printing chinese fonts are we destined to continue with such large file sizes then??!!!

Our invoice run of yesterday was 500 pages file size 1GB. Imagine pushing this file down a 512kbps line to a printer on the other end!! All printing has been halted for 2 days!

Best regards
Shrikanth
 
Shrikanth -

I don't have enough direct experience with double-byte fonts to help. Possibly Michael or another member of the list can offer advice.

If you haven't already, it wouldn't hurt to pose the question to the Create!form support team again. It may be that they have updated information for your printer configuration that will resolve the file size issue.


Karen.
 
Hi Karen

Thanks for the response. We have already asked CF for help as well. Just that since the problem was so critical, i wanted some practical experience from the wider community. But you are right, not too many people using CF in double byte i guess, so experience in this region is hard to come by...

Will keep you all posted on any resolution we get.

best regards
shrikanth
 
shrikanth: like Karen, I do not have a lot of experience with double byte processing. My first question would be why you are doing the "queue to queue" processing, i.e., sending to the Postscript queue and then to a PCL queue. The ANyPort processing is what is invoking GhostScript to convert to PCL, and what is causing the huge bump in the file size. Have you tried printing the Postscript output direct to the printer ... not sure if the chinese fonts require this PCL conversion, but if not the easiest way would be to bypass this. You could try testing this on a local printer (to eliminate the WAN impact) with a smaller file. There may also be alternatives of doing "port to port" processing where the end result is a PDF which is then sent to the printer ... might need to play with this a bit. Do you have Create!Stream or Create!form Director?

Sorry could not be of more direct assistance!
 
If you use Create!form server 3.2, with the output format of PCL/Other, and from the PCL options, select HP LaserJet 4, 600 dpi, the file should be smaller.
 
Back
Top