Text-Based Emulation Properties

Text-Based emulations display your data in plain text in the data selector and the Data Pane, one line at a time, up to the limit you specify in the emulation properties (by default, 66 lines). This is especially useful for legacy systems (such as AS/400 computers) that send data as text meant for older line printers using pre-printed forms. The emulation options are used to make sure your data is stable.

Stabilizing data is the process of defining the size of the data page and where the first data page occurs in the data stream. A stable data page is critical to obtain accurate results. When you stabilize your data, you also need to consider the internal structure of each data page. The internal structure of each data page must also be stable to make the data selections you use in your document reliable. Ideally, a given piece of data occupies the same position across all data pages, or provides some stable characteristic that makes it possible to locate it on every data page.

The following properties are available for the text-based emulations (Line Printer, ASCII, Channel Skip and CSV) to help stabilize the data:

• Add/remove characters: Enter the number of characters to add to, or remove from, the head of the data stream, or use the spin buttons to increment or decrement the value. Positive values add characters while negative values remove characters. Further note that if you remove characters in a CSV emulation, you should ensure that you do not inadvertently remove field or text delimiters.
• Add/remove lines: Enter the number of lines to add to, or remove from, the head of the data stream, or use the spin buttons to increment or decrement the value. Positive values add lines while negative values remove lines.
• Lines per page: Enter the number of lines each data page contains, or use the spin buttons to increment or decrement the value. A higher value means more lines will be displayed on each data page. Note that increasing the value for this setting increases the amount of RAM used by the application and may exceed the system’s capacity. Since the Show used cells option also uses up some RAM, consider removing this option (see Data Selector Display Preferences) to reduce system load.
• Pages in buffer: Enter the number of data pages you want the data page buffer to contain, or use the spin buttons to increment or decrement the value. Putting more pages in the buffer multiples the lines shown and is only useful in specific cases. N-Up Object if you want to display multiple data pages.
• Cut on FF character: Select to have the document start a new data page when it encounters a form feed character in the data stream. If you select Cut on FF character, you have two conditions that signal the end of a data page: the form feed character and the number of lines set in the Lines per page box. Note that the Cut on FF character takes precedence on the lines per page option.
• Read in binary mode: Select this option to force the printer to read the incoming data in binary mode. Use this option with the ASCII emulation to fix problems related to line spacing caused by LFCR character pairs found within the data. Use it with the ASCII emulation and with the Tab on carriage return option to fix problems related to data formatting caused by isolated CR characters found within the data. This option can only be used with the ASCII and User defined emulations. Note that you cannot select this option if the document is to be installed on a printer that cannot run in binary mode.
• Data encoding: Select the appropriate encoding for the sample data file. You may look at the data in the Data pane (non-English characters especially, if any) to see how the your selection affects the data.