Basic%20Concepts%20Of%20Electronic%20Printing

1
Basic Concepts Of Electronic Printing

• William J. Bill McCalpin
• EDPP, CDIA, MIT, LIT
• The Xenos Group
• [phone]
• Xplor Global Conference
• Los Angeles, CA 1999

2
About The Speaker

• Mr. McCalpin is Director of Product Management at
  Xenos Group
• He received the EDPP from Xplor International in
  1992.
• He received the CDIA from CompTIA in 1996.
• He received the MIT from AIIM in 1997.
• He received the LIT from AIIM in 1998.

3
About The Speaker (cont.)

• Mr. McCalpin writes and speaks frequently on
  subjects in the electronic printing and imaging
  industries. He has spoken more than forty times
  at Xplor, AIIM, DocuGroup, and Guide meetings.
• Mr. McCalpin is a member of both Xplor and AIIM.
  He serves on multiple committees in AIIM and
  Xplor.

4
A (Very Brief) History Of Printing
5
The Chinese

• By the end of the 2nd century A.D., the Chinese
  had the three requirements for printing
• paper
• ink
• relief surfaces.

6
The Chinese (cont.)

• By the 8th century, wooden blocks were used for
  the reliefs. The oldest known printed works date
  from this time
• 764-770 - Buddhist incantations printed in Japan
• 868 - The first known book was made in China,
  The Diamond Sutra.

7
The Chinese (cont.)

• Movable type was invented in China in the 11th
  century, but this invention did not catch on.
• In the early 14th century, a Chinese magistrate
  had a set of 60,000 Chinese characters carved on
  wooden blocks for the printing of a treatise on
  the history of technology.

8
The Arabs Bring Paper To The West

• 8th century - The knowledge of how to make paper
  came through the caravan routes of Central Asia.
• 12th century - Italians begin trading with the
  Arabs to bring paper to Europe.
• 13th 14th centuries - Europeans create
  papermaking centers in Italy, France, and Germany.

9
Europe Learned About Paper, But Not Printing

• Despite trade and the travels of people like
  Marco Polo, Europeans never learned the art of
  xylography (printing from wood carving) from the
  Chinese. The ability to print in this way was
  spontaneously learned by the Europeans no earlier
  than the last quarter of the 14th century.

10
The Europeans Start To Print

• The first printed items were relief images
  pressed onto paper, typically religious in
  nature.
• Text was added to the images, and so the first
  real books appeared in Europe in the first half
  of the 15th century.

11
Metallographic Printing

• 1430-1450 - After 12 centuries, Europeans finally
  go beyond the Chinese by making durable
  components for Metallographic printing
• the metal die
• the matrix
• cast lead

12
Johannes Gutenberg

• About 1450, Johannes Gutenberg first associated
  the idea of using die, matrix, and lead with the
  invention of the printing press.

13
The Screw Press

• The screw press was used for the next 350 years
  with technological improvements allowing such a
  press to print up to 250 copies an hour.

14
Technology Improves Printing 19th Century

• The 19th century saw the introduction of
• stereotypy (stereotyped plates allow several
  presses to print the same text at the same time)
• steam power
• cylinder presses
• roll-fed rotary presses
• typecasting machines such as the Linotype and
  Monotype.

15
Technology Improves Printing 20th Century

• The 20th century introduced many more advance-
  ments in printing offset printing, dry offset,
  color printing, photocomposition, even three
  dimensional printing.

16
At Last - Electronic Printing!

• 1923 - Electrostatic printing was first
  demonstrated when the ink of a cylindrical
  typeform was attracted to paper by means of an
  electronic charge.
• 1948 - two Americans conceived the idea of using
  a dry powder rather than ink, and the first
  modern office copiers were born.

17
The 9700

• In 1977 or so, Xerox introduces the 9700, the
  first cut sheet production printer, and our
  industry starts to take off!

18
How Electronic Printers Print

• Xerox Centralized Printers are white on black
• HP and other printers are black on white

19
How A Xerox 9700 Prints

• piece of glass at a rotating, mirrored
  polygon.
• 5. The bits in the scan line cause the piece of
  glass through which the laser is passing to
  vibrate.
• 6. The laser beam hits the drum for each off
  pixel, and discharges that spot on the drum.

• 1. The image is resolved into a bit map.
• 2. Each 'scan line' is dispatched to the engine.
• 3. A photoelectric drum which is on a circular
  belt is charged with a high voltage.
• 4. A laser is fired through a

20
How A Xerox 9700 Prints (cont.)

• 7. Toner is passed over the drum, and the toner
  sticks to the charged areas.
• 8. Paper is passed over the drum, and the toner
  now sticks to the paper.
• 9. The paper, now with toner applied, passes

• through a fuser, which is a set of very hot
  rollers (400F) which fuse the toner to the
  paper.
• 10. The paper is post-processed as needed and
  placed into an output bin.

21
Definitions In Electronic Printing

• Or, how what Gutenberg did five centuries still
  affects you today...

22
Type

• Type - from the Greek word typtein - to beat or
  strike. Even today, the phrase in Italian for to
  type is battere a macchina, literally, to beat
  with the machine.

23
Resources

• Font
• Forms
• Image
• Graphic
• Logo

24
Please Note

• In AFP, a graphic refers only to a vector
  representation.
• In AFP, an image refers only to a raster
  representation.
• The word logo is a reference to a Xerox-specific
  object.
• In AFP, a form is called an overlay.

25
Measurements

• Point
• Pica Pitch
• Monopitch
• Proportional

• x-height
• em space
• en space

26
Point

• A

• 996 points are equivalent to 35 centimeters, or
  one point is equal to .01383 inches. This means
  about 72.3 points to the inch. We in electronic
  printing use 72 points per inch

27
Pica

• From the Medieval Latin word for directory,
  probably referring to the usual size of the type
  used to print a directory, about 1/6th of an
  inch hence, 12 points make up a pica, and 6
  picas make up an inch.

• A letter-sized sheet of paper in the U.S. is 66
  picas long.

28
x-height

• The height of the lowercase x. Used in typography
  as the standard height of the body for all the
  characters in the font, minus their ascenders and
  descenders.

• b x p

29
em

• Originally, a unit of measure equal to the width
  of the capital M, the widest character in a font.
  Now the em space is equal to the height of the
  font, hence the em space of a 10 point font is 10
  points (wide).

• The default word space for this font is 1/3 an em
  space.

30
en

• Half an em space.

• Two ens add up to an em.

31
Pitch

• Probably from Middle English picchen, to strike -
  the number of characters per inch (applied to a
  monopitch font)

• Miwl

32
Monopitch

• Referring to a font in which all the characters
  are the same width.

• Miwl
• 10 pitch is 10 characters per inch.

33
Proportional

• Referring to a font in which each character has a
  width appropriate to the size of the character.
  E.g., in a proportional font (like this one), I
  is much narrower than W.

• Miwl
• the M is many times wider than the i in a
  proportional font.

34
The Character

• Raster fonts are fonts whose characters are
  defined by bitmaps (see right).
• Outline fonts (also called scalable) are fonts
  whose characters are defined by strokes.

35
Character Anatomy
36
Baseline

• Baseline - An imaginary line upon which the body
  of the character sits. All characters on a line
  of text share the same baseline, even characters
  in different fonts.

37
Ascender And Descender

• Ascender - strokes which rise above the x-height
  (or body of the character).
• Descender - strokes which go below the baseline
  (or the body of the character).

• b q

38
Font Height And Baseline

• Font height - the sum of the length of the
  longest descender, longest ascender, and
  x-height.
• Line skip - Usually, the distance from baseline
  to baseline. Note, this value is often larger
  than the font height.

• bxpW
• pxbM

39
Kern

• Kern - from the French word carne, meaning
  projecting angle or hinge, ultimately from the
  Latin word cardo (cardinis), a hinge. Kern is
  that part of the face of a letter which projects
  beyond the body.

40
Serif And Sans Serif

• Serif
• Sans
• Serif

• Serif Sans Serif - serif (also spelled cerif)
  comes from the Dutch word schreef, meaning a
  stroke or a line, from schrijve (to write, cf.
  German schreiben), ultimately from Latin scribere

41
Leading

• Leading - blank dies made of the metal lead were
  inserted between characters on a line of type to
  enable justifying the line of text to fit the
  print area

• This text has been left and right justified so
  the word spaces vary.

42
Upper Case And Lower Case

• The box on the right hand side contained
  individual pieces of type
• The less frequently used characters would be at
  the top - away from the printer
• Hence, capital letters were called upper case

43
Mind Your Ps And Qs

• ps and qs - the phrase mind your ps and qs
  comes from the days of metal type. On metal type,
  the image of the character is backwards from the
  printed image. Since a p and a q are mirror
  images of each other, it is easy to confuse them,
  hence the warning.

44
The Family Tree of Printer Data Streams
45
Philology

• Philology is the study of language, normally
  human languages
• One field of study in philology is the
  relationship that different languages have to one
  another
• What happens if we apply philology to electronic
  printing?

46
The Family Tree
47
In The Beginning

• The first computer created tables for artillery
• Mechanical typewriters
• Line Data

48
EBCDIC Versus ASCII

• BCD - Binary Coded Decimal
• BCDIC - Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
• EBCDIC - IBM Extended Binary Coded Decimal
  Interchange Code
• ASCII - American Standard Code for Information
  Interchange

49
EBCDIC Line Data

• EBCDIC encoded - 8 bit
• Record-oriented because of IBM OSs
• Carriage controls
• Machine carriage controls
• ANSI carriage controls

50
ASCII Line Data

• ASCII encoded - 7 bit
• Record orientation is not intrinsic to OS
• Text files use print controls to delimit records
• Common print controls
• x0d carriage return
• x0a line feed
• x0c form feed

51
The EBCDIC Family Tree

• EBCDIC text
• 1403 data - EBCDIC records with a carriage
  control
• LCDS - Line conditioned data stream
• 3800 Mod I
• 3211 data with Xerox DJDEs
• Others
• AFP and IPDS

52
The ASCII Family Tree

• ASCII text
• ASCII text with print controls
• ASCII text with escape sequences
• Epson MX-80 Xerox UDK (XES)
• QMS QUIC IBM PPDS
• HP PCL Xerox Metacode
• Print programming languages using ASCII
• Interpress PostScript

53
Escape Sequences Versus Programming Language

• For escape sequence data streams, the host
  completely formats the documents - the printer
  merely follows the instructions
• For programming language data streams, the host
  describes the document to be printed - the
  printer finishes the composition process

54
Escape Sequences Versus Programming Language
(cont.)

• Escape sequence data streams normally print
  faster on the printer
• Programming language data streams enable superior
  graphics
• Both are capable of printing the average business
  document text, fonts, graphics, scanned images,
  etc.

55
Line Data versus APA Data

• Line Data
• Character-based
• Row and column oriented
• All Points Addressable
• Lets you place toner almost anywhere on a page
• Requires significantly more information to print
  or view than line data

56
Printing Resources Basics

• Anything the printer needs to resolve the print
  datastream
• Specialized groups of control records
• Fonts, Forms, and Graphics

57
Fonts

• The file(s) that define how the characters should
  appear when the file is created
• One or more files in a vendor-specific format
• Contain mappings of specific codepoints
  (codepages/symbol sets) to images of the
  characters

58
Font Basics

• Serif or Sans Serif
• Weight UltraLight or UltraBold
• Stress Roman, Oblique, Italic
• Point Size - 72 points per inch
• Character set / Code page
• Custom Logo and signature fonts
• No two shops have exactly the same set of
  fonts installed!

59
Forms / Overlays / Macros

• Contain data used repeatedly
• designed to replace preprinted forms
• may contain lines, text and/or graphics
• may be inline or in a separately- called file
• format is different for each datastream

60
Images / Graphics

• Bitmap images are made of a pattern of dots
• Vector graphics are mathematical instructions for
  drawing lines
• All datastreams support one or more types of
  bitmap images
• Not all datastreams support vectors

61
The Datastreams

• What are they?
• What are the pieces? (resources)
• Where do you find the pieces?
• Who uses them?

62
What is AFP?

• Advanced Function Printing (1980s) /
  Presentation (1990s)
• Publicly documented, open architecture from IBM -
  an industry standard
• Provides integration of data and resources to
  create pages for printing, viewing, or archiving
• All Points Addressable datastream

63
AFPDS

• The device independent, object-based structured
  datastream
• Contains text, image, forms, fonts, bar codes,
  graphics, formatting instructions, tagging for
  indexing or finishing
• Uses internal and external fonts, graphics,
  forms
• Resources are centrally controlled

64
Print Services Facility

• Printers are most often attached to a mainframe
  or workstation that maintains control of the
  print process via PSF
• PSF transforms device independent AFPDS to device
  dependent IPDS
• PSF provides error recovery

65
Flavors of AFP

• Line Data (3211) - usually EBCDIC
• may have CC and/or font index characters
• Conditioned Line Data / Mixed Mode
• Fully Composed - MODCA
• Mixed Object Document Content Architecture
• IOCA, GOCA, FOCA, PTOCA, BCOCA
• New objects multimedia, page grouping,
  navigation, non-AFP
• ACIF - resources are bundled in a single file

66
What Creates AFP?

• Script Languages
• DCF, BookMaster, CompuSet
• Industry-specific applications
• CSF, EZ-Letter, DocuMerge, CBIS
• Transforms
• Xenos Meta2AFP, PCL2AFP, etc.
• Report management systems
• CA, New Dimension, RDS
• AFP Print Driver for Windows, APIs, Toolbox
• Form Design Packages
• Elixir, ISIS, ProForm, DOC1, XPRINT
• User Created programs

67
AFP Wrap-up

• IBM AFP is based on an architecture, which is
  published
• AFP printers are centrally managed from a host
• Resources normally reside on the host, not the
  printer

68
Xerox Printer Datastreams

• 2 languages for high-speed centralized
  printing Metacode and DJDE
• UDK/XES for Xerox decentralized printing
• PostScript (Midrange and DocuTech)
• PCL (Midrange)
• XES/Metacode mixed - 4235

69
Xerox Terms

• Online Printing Printer is attached to a host
  computer which controls the print job.
• Offline Printing Printer is not attached to a
  host computer. Print jobs are fed via an attached
  peripheral device, usually a tape drive. Some
  commands behave differently.

70
What is Metacode?

• Native printer language to Xerox ESS/Centralized
  printers
• Fastest way to print on a Xerox Centralized
  printer
• Partially documented, proprietary Xerox Format -
  not an architecture
• A set of ASCII formatting controls that more
  closely resembles stream I/O

71
Metacode / DJDEs

• Printer control commands may be interspersed with
  print data sometimes the printer control
  commands appear within the same record as the
  print data.
• The Metacode printer may switch between EBCDIC
  and ASCII data modes between print jobs, or
  within jobs as required.

72
Other Flavors of Metacode

• Conditioned Line Data DJDE
• line data with DJDE records to change fonts, and
  call forms and images
• The bulk of all Xerox printing
• Mixed Mode
• Metacode and line data in the same print file,
  sometimes in alternating records
• Usually generated by 3rd-party products
• page interleaved files slow the printer down

73
What Creates Metacode?

• Script Languages
• DCF/BookMaster with DCF/PLUS, CompuSet/XICS
• Industry-specific applications
• CSF, EZ-Letter, or DocuMerge
• Transforms
• Xenos AFP2Meta, PCL2Meta, etc.
• Forms design packages
• Elixir or Intran, Proform
• User created programs (rare)
• Application of DJDEs to legacy line data

74
Metacode Wrap-up

• Metacode is not an architecture
• There is no PSF to monitor resource usage
• Resources are usually stored on the printer
• Data and printer commands can be either ASCII or
  EBCDIC

75
What is PCL?

• All Points Addressable Datastream
• Publicly documented, owned by HP
• Provides integration of data and resources to
  create pages for printing
• ASCII data with escape sequences to designate
  printer commands
• Many levels, newest is Level 6
• Levels 4 and 5 are most commonly used

76
What Creates PCL?

• A variety of programs such as PeopleSoft
• User created programs
• Print Drivers
• Transforms such as Xenoss AFP2PCL, Meta2PCL,
  XES2PCL, PDF2PCL

77
PCL Wrap-up

• PCL is an ASCII datastream most often generated
  by PC-based programs
• PCL uses very few external resource files
• PCL fonts are often stored on the printer either
  in ROM or on cartridges

78
What is PostScript?

• Adobes Document Formatting Language
• All Points Addressable
• Complex Language with standard computing
  operators
• Still changing
• Designed for flexibility, not speed

79
What Creates PostScript?

• Adobe and 3rd Party Software packages
• Many graphics and page layout programs
• User created software (rare)
• Windows Print Drivers
• Transforms such as Xenoss AFP2PS, Meta2PS,
  PCL2PS, XES2PS

80
What is PDF?

• Adobes Portable Document Format
• NOT exactly PostScript -No math or GOTOs
• Self-contained for easier sharing
• Designed for rapid Viewing
• Designed to support Acrobat Reader and Acrobat
  Exchange.
• Supported by web browsers via plug-in
• Designed for cross-platform compatibility
  (Windows, MAC, UNIX, WWW)

81
What Can You Do with PDF?

• Post documents on the WWW
• Create viewable versions of business documents
• Index, annotate, link and bookmark documents
• Combine, extract, and manipulate document pages
• View Thumbnails of pages

82
What Creates PDF?

• Created from PostScript files by Adobe Distiller
• PDF Writer (emulates a print driver)
• Transforms such as Xenoss AFP2PDF, Meta2PDF,
  PCL2PDF, and XES2PDF
• A growing number of other software packages

83
The Other Pieces - Adobe Fonts

• Define how the characters should appear when the
  file is created
• Printer-resident fonts used for most PostScript
  jobs.
• TrueType and Type 1 scaleable fonts may reside on
  the host and be sent to the printer with the job
• May also use Type 3 bitmapped fonts

84
PDF Fonts - Base 14

• All Acrobat installations contain 14 base fonts
• Helvetica Helvetica-Oblique
• Helvetica-Bold Helvetica-BoldOblique
• Times-Roman Times-Italic
• Times-Bold Times-BoldItalic
• Courier Courier-Oblique
• Courier-Bold Courier-BoldOblique
• Symbol (??????? ZapfDingbats (?????)

85
PostScript Wrap-up

• PostScript in a complex printer language that
  allows inline programming
• PostScript is evolving into a language which can
  be used in high volume printing applications

86
PDF Wrap-up

• PDF is optimized for online viewing and offers
  many features not available with printed paper.
• PDF is changing . PDF 1.3 was announced earlier
  this year.

87
What is XES?

• Xerox Escape Sequences, also called UDK for User
  Defined Keys
• Proprietary Xerox text-based formatting for Xerox
  low-speed decentralized (departmental) printers
• Usually ASCII
• Obsolete - these printers have been
  end-of-lifed by Xerox

88
XES Pieces

• Bitmapped font files are usually stored on the
  printer
• Forms are usually defined inline
• Bitmapped image and logo files are usually stored
  on the printer
• Vector Graphics (Line Draw) may be defined inline

89
What Creates XES?

• XES only has about 20 commands so it is usually
  hand coded or built by user-created programs

90
What Do We Do With XES?

• Since XES printers have been end-of-lifed by
  Xerox, users will have to
• Convert applications generating XES to PCL or
  PostScript (usually), or
• Acquire 3rd party transforms such as Xenos
  XES2PCL or XES2PS, or
• Find someone willing to support these obsolete
  printers

91
XES Wrap-up

• XES is an obsolete Xerox format for low-speed
  printers
• Most XES users are looking for a way to convert
  to less-costly PCL or PostScript printers

92
AFP and Xerox Discussion Lists

• Discussion lists are for people interested in
  particular things to exchange information
• Discussion lists communicate via e-mail to
  registered users, rather than public bulletin
  boards.
• Xerox list-serve xerox-lcds-subscribe_at_topica.com
• AFP list-serve afp-l-subscribe_at_topica.com

93
Additional Sessions This Week

• CAV 01 - A broad view of document
  standardsMarilyn WrightWED 300 PM - 400 PM
• FOC 21 - Moving your legacy documents to new
  media
• Pat McGrew, EDPP
• WED 715 AM - 815 AM

94
Additional Sessions This Week

• FOC 32 - The EDPP certification process revealed
• Stephen Wowelko, EDPP, Diana Hillman, EDPP
• WED 1230 PM - 130 PM
• INT 20 - XML update - Where is XML going and how
  will it affect you? Bill McCalpin - EDPP
• THU 1000 AM - 1130 AM

95
Additional Sessions This Week

• FUN 06 - From hardcopy to electronic delivery
  making the migration Stephen Poe, EDPP
• WED 1130 AM - 1230 PM
• FUN 04 - Buzz word central
• David Weinberger and Stephen Poe, EDPP
• TUE 100 PM - 200 PM (right now!)

96
Additional Sessions This Week

• KNO 07 - What knowledge management is and isn't
• David Weinberger
• THU 300 PM - 400 PM
• ORG 25 - Is the document dead?
• Bill McCalpin, EDPP, and Bill McDaniel, EDPP
• THU 300 PM - 400 PM

97
Credits

• Kern- graphic from IBMs Font Object Content
  Architecture manual found at http//booksrv2.ralei
  gh.ibm.com80/cgi-bin/bookmgr/bookmgr.cmd/BOOKS/HA
  3F2M00/4.2.9
• Many data stream slides courtesy of Linda
  McDaniel, EDPP, Xenos Group

98
Credits

• Gutenberg Bible graphic - found at
  http//www.huntington.org/LibraryDiv/GutenbergPict
  .html
• A...History Of Printing (Japanese character for
  vigor) - found at http//www.j-mac.co.jp/amusement
  /steve/kanji/kanjiframe.html

99
Credits

• Technology..20th Century (actually a SM102
  Heidelberg press) - found at http//www.heidelberg
  aus.com.au/Smaster/SM102/SM102P.HTM
• History of Printing - Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Screw Press (actually the first stop-cylinder
  press) - Encyclopaedia Britannica

100
Credits

• Type - graphic from The Imperial Dictionary Of
  The English Language
• The Character (raster A) - from In-House
  Publishing In A Mainframe Environment
  (McGrew/McDaniel)
• Character Anatomy - from The New York Public
  Library Writers Guide To Style And Usage

101
Credits

• The 9700 (actually a 4090) - from a PC graphics
  package
• Chinese print shop, portrait of Gutenberg,
  image of single page of manuscript, woodcut of a
  European print shop, and the outside of the
  Gutenberg Museum are all found at
  http//www.gutenberg.de

102
Credits

• All other graphics created by Bill McCalpin,
  EDPP, and Chris Halicki, EDPP
• On the right, the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz,
  Germany

103
Bill McCalpin EDPP, CDIA, MIT, LIT

• Director of Product Management
• Xenos Group
• 3010 LBJ Freeway Suite 1500
• Dallas, TX 75234
• [phone] (voice) [phone] (fax)
• bmccalpin_at_xenosgroup.com
• www.xenosgroup.com