Device management setup procedure

Procedure aim

LN ’s Device Management contains the procedures that you can use to create devices and specify the paper types and fonts for the printouts.

Additional procedures are included in device management, which you can use to do the following:

  • Create devices
  • Define paper types
  • Define the fonts for the paper types
  • Group devices in a logical printer
Procedure result and prerequisites
Result

This procedure results in a range of devices that you can use to view or print data that LN processes.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the physical printers are installed on your operating system. If the printers do not exist on the operating system, refer to the appropriate Installation Manual for you operating system.

A printer in an LN environment must have a printer information file or printer device driver, which contains the printer commands, for example, ESC and CTRL. The printer information file also contains the sequences for fonts, reverse video, underlining, and bold.

This section describes only the most important steps in the device management procedures. For detailed instructions on how to enter data in the sessions mentioned in the procedure steps, refer to the online session Help.

Procedure summary

Before LN can print the processed data, you must complete the following steps to create the devices and the associated data:

The following figure illustrates the main steps in the device management procedure:
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Schritt 1. Define paper types

Define the characteristics of the paper that can be loaded in a physical printer. You can define specific paper types for every type of output. For example, if you want to print paychecks, you must define the characteristics of the preprinted checks that must be loaded in the printer.

Session: Paper Types (ttaad3110m000)

Schritt 2. Define the fonts for the paper type

Define the fonts to use for each paper type. The fonts define the number of characters that can fit on one line and the number of lines that can fit on a sheet of paper. You must also define the width and height of the sheet of paper. LN uses these dimensions to check whether the report fits on the selected paper type.

Session: Fonts by Paper Type (ttaad3111m000)

Schritt 3. Create the devices

You must create the devices to which LN can send processed data. These devices can be physical devices, such as printers or logical printers, or a file.

Sessions: Device Data (ttaad3500m000) and Device Data (ttaad3100s000)

Schritt 4. Create the logical printers

You can group printers in close proximity into a logical printer. If a user sends a print request to a logical printer, the printer daemon checks the paper type of each printer in the logical printer and automatically directs the output to the first printer in the logical printer that contains the required paper type.

Session: Logical Printers (ttaad3101m000)