Queue Properties - Input Filters

Select the queue to change by highlighting it. Choose Properties from the Queue menu or double-click on the queue name to show the queue tabs.

Input Filters
The input filter is used to deal with instances of inconsistent or unformatted data, for example, removing a leading NULL character or filtering AS/400 print files. There are a number of pre-defined filters available in FTSpooler, or you can use your own customized program.

Click the Add button and you will see a list of pre-built input filters. Select External Process... Button to add a custom filter. This options is available only for Enterprise (Windows Network) connection. World (Internet) connection restricted to use only the filters that are registered by FTSpooler Server Console. More information on Filter Registration in FTSpooler Server Console In the Process Filter screen, executable Name refers to the full path and program required. Enter the path manually or click Browse button. Each filter requires at least two parameters: (%1) - substituted at run-time with the full path to the input data file; and (%2) - substituted at run-time with the full path to the filtered file. These parameters must appear in the Command Line box. Any parameters specific to the filter process follow the above. No further processing halts processing after the filter has run. This is commonly used where FTSpooler is used to run other processes alongside FormTrap such as FTLabel to drive barcode printers. No console window applies to console programs only and prevents appearance of console window. Note that for non-console applications this option will result in failure of execution of the filter. Error if output file is empty to enforce filtering. With this option checked, empty output from the filter process will record a failure of the processing of the job, and with a record generated in the failed jobs archive. Without this option checked the empty output from filter process will be ignored and pre-filtered data will be used in further processing.

Click Add button and available pre-built output filters is displayed in the pop up window. Only registered filters can be used in World (Internet) connection. More information on Filter Registration in FTSpooler Server Console The pre-defined filters available include: AS/400 - Designed to correctly interpret data transmitted from AS/400 machines; removes surplus carriage returns and form feed from the print stream and pads out each page to the length specified in the options dialog box with line feeds. You may configure the AS/400 filter settings by click on AS/400 on the selected filters list, click Options button. The screen below pops up which allows you to change Minimum number of rows in page as well as option of Replace form feeds with line feeds. Remove PCL5 escapes - removes any embedded PCL commands from ASCII data files. Commonly used when the default printer setup in the originating application contains PCL formatting commands. Replace 'NULL' with space - removes NULL characters from the print stream, substituting space characters. Commonly used when input data comes from a UNIX system. Replace single CR with LF - substitutes single carriage characters with a line feed character. Commonly used when input data comes from legacy applications.
Order of execution of the filters can be changed using up and down arrow buttons. When FTSpooler runs a job for this queue, a new icon will appear in the status bar to indicate the start of the filter process.
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