Print jobs and print files

To plan your configuration and hardware requirements, you need to understand how InfoPrint Manager handles print files and files generated while transforming and processing print files. What happens depends on how you submitted the job, what attributes you specify, what transform runs, and if you are running InfoPrint Manager on a single machine or multiple machines (sharing the namespace) and where you have defined your objects (logical and actual destinations).

Now that the different parts of the InfoPrint Manager server (pdserver) and how they interoperate are understood, you need to understand where a print job's print files are stored and how they are transferred around the system. This is the general flow of a print job in the system, and it applies to every job that is submitted to InfoPrint Manager, regardless of the destination support system used to process the job. Then you need to consider the specifics of the PSF destination support system that provides many additional functions that create additional files. These functions include automatic data stream transforms, pre-ripping files, and so forth.

A job object in InfoPrint Manager is created to represent each print job (pdpr) request. A job object contains information about the print job request. A job contains one or more document objects. A document object is created to represent each file specified on a job submission.

One of the primary design objectives of InfoPrint Manager minimizes the copying and movement of print files to minimize CPU, disk space, and additionally in a multiple server environment, network traffic usage.

These terms are useful in this description:

originating pdserver

The pdserver the client is connected to that is functioning as the command processor for the print request. The pdserver that receives the print submission request. The originating pdserver manages the copy of or the link to the print files. This does not imply that the originating pdserver must contain the logical destination and queue; it can simply forward the request to the pdserver that does contain the logical destination and queue.

printing pdserver

The pdserver that contains the actual destination object that prints the job. The printing pdserver can, if possible, directly access the originating pdserver's copy of (or link to) the print files, or it can pull a local temporary copy of the print files from the originating pdserver. See Basic print file handling for all DSSs for more information.