Setting up device management

With the LN ’s Device Management procedures you can create devices and specify the paper types and fonts for the printouts. Use the additional procedure to group devices in a logical printer.

After the procedure is completed you can use a range of devices 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, see the appropriate Installation Manual for you operating system.

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

For detailed instructions on how to specify data in the sessions mentioned in the procedure steps, see the online session Help.

To create the devices and the associated data:

  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, to print paychecks, you must define the characteristics of the preprinted checks that must be loaded in the printer.

    See the session.

  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.

    See the session.

  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.

    See the and sessions.

  4. Create the logical printers

    You can group printers in close proximity into a logical printer. If you send a print request to a logical printer, the printer daemon checks the paper type of each printer in the logical printer. The output is directed automatically to the first printer in the logical printer that contains the required paper type.

    See the session.