Impress
AFP Manager
Coverage

Impress
 

Impress has been developed by Sirius to allow handling, under Windows environment, Xerox Metacode, AFP and PCL spool files generated by the software Format Printing System in order to: 

• reposition logical pages into physical pages, allowing the preparation of booklets that have a variable number of logical pages

• shift the printing area inside the page to keep the right margin constant after cutting them.

• build a summary

• replace a string of characters

The current version places A5 logical pages in A4 landscape physical orientation or A4 pages in a physical A3.

Based on the type of the booklet it has to be composed for a multiple of 4 logical pages, the input file should contain all the pages to be repositioned, including blank pages, which are required to complete the multiple of 4 at the end of the book.

Impress generates one or more output files. The option to generate multiple output files depends on the number of pages of booklets.

Impress allows the user to select a group of files to repostion them even though they are different types (Xerox, AFP and PCL) so as, to run by command line.

IMPRESS records information in the LOG file like:

• Product version

• Execution date and time

• Type of input file

• Input file name

• Number of output files

• Number of specified booklets and the names of the generated output files

• Shift

• Number of logical pages

• Number of booklets

• Processing time

• Warning and error messages

AFP Manager
 

AFP Manager was developed by Sirius to enable the handling of AFP spool files generated by Format Printing System or similar softwares.

Runs under Windows environment interactively or by command line.

During the production stage (printing of documents) is normal to:

- separate pages or documents contained in AFP spool files for printing

- insert optical marks or bar codes for auditing systems

- insert images and texts

- merge files gathering documents with the same search key.

The functions of the AFP Manager are, among others:

• Generate a new AFP spool file containing:
  - the selected pages
  - documents with search keys specified by the user
  - specified pages from a specified document

• Split input file in "n" individual files which size should not exceed a certain size in Mb

• Generate a "Journal" file associated with each AFP spool file AFP obtained at the split file stage

• Delete documents from a text file which extension is ".fim" and contains the identity of the documents to be deleted.

• Replace resources (images and fonts) of an AFP file for the resources of another AFP file.

• Search in "n" files for AFP documents they have the same identification key in order to:
   - create a new document gathering all those with the same key
   - insert new optical mark or barcodes for finishing equipment caused by the gathering process
   - sort output files based on another key such as the ZIP code.

Coverage
 

The Coverage is a tool developed by Sirius to calculate the toner consumption per printed page.

The Coverage reads an image file from the page to be printed as a BMP (Bitmap monochrome), regardless of software used to create the document.

The result of data obtained by Coverage, allows the user to evaluate the toner consumption per page prior to printing.

On this way it is easier to fund a project, update consumables and expendables stock and prepare budgets for printing.

To illustrate what is the toner consumption for a print, imagine an A4 page with 365 words, occupying 24 lines, Arial size 10. The toner used in this case is 5%.