Pasta Printing

Today & in next post I'll cover on Pasta & XML publisher for printing . In order to understand Pasta first you need to understand why you need Pasta in Printing & later about what is pasta & how to implement it in Oracle Applications.

In order to understand need for Pasta , you should know about PostScript...

What is Post Script ?
As per WebOPedia PostScript is primarily a language for printing documents on laser printers developed by Adobe Systems.

What is Pasta ?
Pasta is Oracle Application utility to convert text report files to Post Script so that these can be printed by PostScript Printres. Executable name for Pasta is FNDPSTAX
For various printing options via Pasta, you can use pasta configuration file called as pasta.cfg

How to Setup basic Pasta Printing in Oracle Applications ?
If you wish to use PostScript printer to print Text or Post script reports , you need to select printer type as "--Pasta Universal Printer" from list of values; while defining printer.

For more information on how to define printer check previous posts at

 

Well lot of my readers were pushing me to write on printer configuration and I was dragging it since long but now as I have started getting lot of mails of printer step(either for certification or for interview) so finally I decided to start with Printers Basics & to understand printers in Apps Understanding these basics terminology is quite important.




Printer Drivers : As you see in last section under Install -> Printer Section, driver delivers command to printer about how to output a specific print style. You can understand them as series of instructions used by print style for a particular printer.
Example of Drivers is A4HPLJ4



Printer Style : Tells printer how printed output should look, for ex. Number of lines in page, width of line , whether header to print or not. A printer can have more than one style as long as printer supports it. If a print style is available & registers for a particular printer then only it will be visible to user (In some CM reports these styles are predefined and can't be changed)
Example of Print Style is A4




Printer type : is to identify printer by manufacturer & model number for ex. HP laser Jet III

Printer Type form in Apps ( Install -> Printer -> Types) associate Style with Driver Name .
For Ex. with Printer Type HPLJ4 , you see style A4 & driver A4HPLJ4




SRW - Stands for SQL report writer driver file, Thing to Note w.r.t. SRW Driver file is that
If a report is for online viewing, report uses SRW named by print style in print style form.
If a report is for Printing , report uses SRW driver named by oracle Apps printer driver in Printer Drivers form.

Almost all standard Printer Types, Printer Driver & Printer Style are preconfigured in Apps. You just need to register your printer with Applications .
How to Register Printer in Oracle Apps ? 
First Printer which you want to configure should be able to print at Operating System Level from Concurrent Manager Machine.
You can issue lp command. Don't proceed until you can print via Operating System command lp from CM node. Once printer is configured at O.S. Level , ask Unix System administrator name with which they have configured printer at O.S. Level.
Collect printer type information, it should be like HP , APPLE , EPSON ...

Login to Oracle Applications with System Administrator Responsibility & click on Install -> Printer -> Register then under Printer Tab enter name by which printer is defined at CM node at O.S. Level. In Type define type of printer like HP , EPSON , APPLE. In Description enter some sensible description . This completes registration of your printer on your Oracle Application.
Now test this printer by submitting some request & selecting recently configured printer & you should be able to print.

There are two other printing options in oracle apps using PASTA & XML . If I get request on printing using PASTA utility or XML utility then I'll discuss them in future .

Where to find more information on Pasta Printing ?
You can get everything related to Pasta advanced configuration in Oracle Applications System Administration Guide, Volume 1 Part No. A96155-03 , chapter 7-13 Printer Setup with pasta

Additional Metalink Resource for Pasta Printing

356501.1 How to Setup Pasta Quickly and Effectively
267026.1 How To Set The PASTA Debug Option
239196.1 PASTA 3.0 Release InformationNote
358879.1 The Pasta Landwide Driver Truncates / Cuts Off The Right Side Of The Report 179801.1 Printing and Previewing Arabic Reports using PASTA in Oracle Apps 11i
308949.1 How To Print Reports In PDF Format Directly From The Concurrent Manager 135137.1 PASTA Required For Printing With UTF8 For Any Release Of 11.5