Overview of ACIF
With ACIF you can do these tasks:
- Convert line data, XML data, or mixed data into Mixed Object Document Content Architecture for Presentation (MO:DCA-P) data, which is data that is composed into pages and includes data placement and presentation information (such as which font to use).
- Index a document to enhance your ability to view, archive, or retrieve individual pages or groups of pages from large documents; create a separate index object file from the indexing tags.
- Retrieve and package AFP resources that are needed for printing or viewing a document and place them in a separate file, so that you can print and view the exact document, possibly years after its creation.
ACIF accepts data from your application in these formats:
- AFP data
- MO:DCA-P data
- Record format or traditional line data
- Mixed-mode data
- XML data
- Unformatted ASCII data
ACIF can process application print data and AFP resources to produce these AFP files:
- Document file
- Resource file
- Index object file
With the files that ACIF creates, you can do these tasks:
- Use InfoPrint Manager or RICOH ProcessDirector to print the AFP document file. If you specified resources in the AFP document file, InfoPrint Manager or RICOH ProcessDirector references the AFP resource file for the names and locations of the resources. The AFP document file must be concatenated to the end of the resource file before the file is printed.
- Use the AFP Workbench Viewer application to view the AFP document file. AFP Workbench Viewer takes MO:DCA-P data and resources as input to produce output that can be viewed.
- Use your own archive system to store the ACIF-created files.
- Use your own retrieval system to access information in the ACIF files by using retrieval information in the index object file.
How ACIF fits into Advanced Function Presentation shows a high-level overview of how ACIF fits into an installation's AFP process for creating, indexing, viewing, and printing documents. This figure shows the resources and text data that can feed into ACIF for processing. The resources and text data can be provided and used by various AFP and AFP-compatible products. The files that ACIF produces can then be sent to a customer-supplied archival and retrieval system, to the spool, or to the AFP Workbench Viewer for viewing.