XDC file contents

The following list describes the XDC contents that are accessible from XDC Editor. These categories correspond to tabs in the XDC Editor panel:

Trays
(PCL and PostScript printers only) You can add or modify input trays in this panel. In addition, you can easily map input trays to different media. You can specify the input and output trays that are available on the printer that is independent of the media types. You can then map input trays to different media types.

Fonts
A definition of the fonts that are residing on the printer. Administrators add and remove fonts to match those fonts that are installed on a target printer. When an administrator adds fonts, XDC Editor adds the font metrics and other characteristics to the XDC file.

Printer capabilities
Printer features, such as duplex printing and PDL language level. Most of these options depend on the type of PDL indicated by the XDC file.

Sequences
PDL sequences are short PDL sequences that Output injects into the PDL syntax that is sent to the printer at specific points in the print job such as at the beginning of a page or a record.

Mediums
Media types (paper types) that are available on the printer. Typically, form authors add the mediums to determine the type of paper that the forms must be printed on.

Using Designer, a form author specifies the media type that each page in the form is printed on. When a form is printed, it uses the XDC file for the printer to associate the media type for a page with a specific input tray. It also uses the XDC file to determine the printer-specific commands to select the input and output trays. Output incorporates these commands into the setup instructions it sends to the printer.

Designer and Output use font metrics for these purposes:

  • Designer uses font metric data to find substitute fonts so that it can display forms for which it lacks fonts specified in the form. A font may be unavailable for many reasons. For example, some fonts such as magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) fonts are installed only on the printer. Some fonts may be too expensive to be installed on every computer hosting Designer.

  • Output uses the font metric data to determine the placement of characters on the page.