Work Management Standards › Print File Direction

Print File Direction

There are several levels at which the location of printed spooled output may be controlled under OS/400. For convenience, the levels are summarized below. Note that OS/400 has a number of additional capabilities, in particular the PRTDEV parameter.

Printing is affected by starting a writer to print from an output queue. Since a given printer can only be attached to one output queue at a time, the location at which a spool file is printed is therefore effectively controlled by the output queue to which the spool file is attached. This is determined by the following:

The print file attribute—Print files have an attribute (OUTQ) that specifies a default output queue to be used when the file is used, and which can be changed using the OS/400 Change print file (CHGPRTF) command. The attribute either explicitly names a particular queue, or has a value of *JOB, which causes the output queue to be defaulted at the time of printing to the output queue for the job that has created the spooled output. On AS/40,0 a value of *DEV may be used—it specifies that the printer device associated with the job should be used. The output queue used for a particular spool file may be temporarily overridden for part or the entire job, using the OS/400 Override print file (OVRPRTF) command.

The output queue for the job—The output queue for a job is set by the job description used to start the job. It may be overridden by the Submit job (SBMJOB) command used to start the job, or from within the job using the Change job (CHGJOB) command.

The output queue for the user profile—A default output queue can be specified for each user profile. The output queue for a job is set by the job description used to start the job. It may be overridden by the OS/400 ‘Submit job’ (SBMJOB) command used to start the job, or from within the job using the OS/400 Change job (CHGJOB) command. This is summarized in the following diagram.

Levels of Print File Redirection - IBM i:

Different levels of control are appropriate for different operational requirements. The four most common requirements for printing spooled output are:

• To print it at a printer associated with a workstation, for example, the nearest location (for instance, print key output, or on-demand reports)
• To print it at a printer associated with a user, regardless of where the user is (for instance, confidential, or on-demand reports)
• To print it always at the system printer (as in the case of large reports), or at a particular printer (as in the case of reports on special forms, or with special font requirements)
• To not print it at all (for example job logs, compilation listings)

The recommended standard is to use the defaulting mechanisms whenever possible so that print output can be redirected generically. In particular, you should set the print file output queue of print files to OUTQ(*JOB), so that all print output for a workstation can then be redirected simply by using the CHGJOB command. OUTQ(*JOB) is particularly suitable for meeting the first and second requirements above. The third and fourth requirements above can best be achieved using the OS/400 Change print file (CHGPRTF) command.