Sending output to a printer

This Quick Start describes how to use the Output service to merge a form design with one or more records and send the output to a printer.

Using the Output service, the records can be merged with a form design to create filled forms that can be sent to a printer. The form design must have corresponding field names for each field to merge with the record. For example, when a purchase order process completes at an organization, a record that contains the contents of the purchase order is created and saved as an XML file. The contents of the XML file are merged with a form design. Each record that is merged with the form design creates a filled purchase order form. The filled purchase order is sent to a printer named myprinter1 on a print server named myprintserver1. (The printing environment is configured by using Microsoft server networking.)

An application named poPrintApp implements this service for the organization. When a purchase order is completed, its contents are saved as a record in an XML file named poData.xml. The poData.xml file is sent at various time intervals to invoke the poProcessPrint service. These assets are in the poPrintApp application:

• A form design named PurchaseOrder.xdp that is used for merging with the XML data.

• A process named poPrintProcess that includes the following items:

  • An input document variable named inputXML that passes the XML data for purchases into the process.

  • An output document variable named outputPS that stores the merged PostScript® output.

  • A generatePrintedOutput operation (Output service), which merges a form design with records in an XML file. The resulting output is a document value that represents the output for printing.

• A sendToPrinter operation (Output service) that sends the document value to a printer. You can choose from various printer protocols, depending on how your printer settings are configured with the LiveCycle Server.

The process diagram for the poPrintPrint process looks like the following illustration:

The following XML file is generated from a purchase order request. The XML file can have one or more records in it. To determine where a record starts and begins, knowledge of which node or level the record starts at is required. In the following XML file, <batch> is the first node (or root node) and is therefore at level 1. The batch element contains three records. Each record is delimited by the <PurchaseOrder> node. Therefore, in the following example, each record starts at level 2.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<batch> 
    <PurchaseOrder> 
        <lastName>Blue</lastName> 
        <firstName>Tony</firstName> 
        <OrderNo>555666777</OrderNo> 
        <Item> 
            <Description>Widget S</Description> 
            <Price>100</Price> 
            <Quantity>2</Quantity> 
        </Item> 
        <Item> 
            <Description>Widget B</Description> 
            <Price>5.00</Price> 
            <Quantity>4</Quantity> 
        </Item> 
        <PurchaseAmount>40.00</PurchaseAmount> 
    </PurchaseOrder> 
    <PurchaseOrder> 
        <lastName>White</lastName> 
        <firstName>Sam</firstName> 
        <OrderNo>555666222</OrderNo> 
        <Item> 
            <Description>Widget ABC</Description> 
            <Price>2200.00</Price> 
            <Quantity>10</Quantity> 
        </Item> 
        <PurchaseAmount>22000.00</PurchaseAmount> 
    </PurchaseOrder> 
    <PurchaseOrder> 
        <lastName>Green</lastName> 
        <firstName>Steve</firstName> 
        <OrderNo>55566688</OrderNo> 
        <Item> 
            <Description>Widget G</Description> 
            <Price>700000</Price> 
            <Quantity>1</Quantity> 
        </Item> 
        <PurchaseAmount>700000</PurchaseAmount> 
    </PurchaseOrder> 
</batch>

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