AFP data standards and requirements

The AFP data standard for AFP document processing features defines general characteristics of AFP print data.

  • Each document in an AFP file must be bounded by Begin Named Group (BNG) and End Named Group (ENG) structured fields.
  • Each document in an AFP file must use one or more Tagged Logical Element (TLE) structured fields to identify the document and its properties. These are often called index tags.
  • The AFP file must conform to certain formatting rules so that text, barcode, and cover block enhancements can be added to its documents.
  • AFP resources including fonts, form definitions, page segments, and overlays must be included as an inline resource group or as external files in the resource path. External resource groups are not supported.

In this section:

  1. AFP data stream preparation
    You can prepare the AFP data stream to conform to the standard before it reaches RICOH ProcessDirector, or prepare the data in RICOH ProcessDirector. You do not need to prepare the data at all if document-level processing is not required. To prepare the data in RICOH ProcessDirector, you use AFP Indexer and other utility programs.
  2. Standardized AFP requirements
    Standardized AFP is the required input for document tracking and manipulation. This topic describes document delineation, document indexing, and document manipulation requirements.
  3. Indexable AFP requirements
    The basic requirement for indexable AFP is that AFP Indexer can be used to establish document boundaries and to add index tags to form standardized AFP. Note that AFP Indexer only does document delineation and document indexing. It does not change AFP data to conform to the document manipulation requirements of standardized AFP, such as including an inline medium map inside each document.

Related information:

Processing AFP files that contain documents
Parent topic: Control files for the AFP Support feature