Object containers
Object containers are used to carry non-Object Content Architecture (OCA)
objects in an Advanced Function Presentation™ (AFP™) data stream.
Some such objects are Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and Tagged Image File
Format (TIFF) images. These non-OCA objects can be wrapped or unwrapped. Wrapped objects are carried in
a Mixed Object Data Content Architecture (MO:DCA™) envelope called an object container.
Unwrapped objects are unaltered from their original form. If the object is
to be carried in MO:DCA resource groups and interchanged, it must be wrapped.
Note:
Print Services Facility™ (PSF) does not check
an object container's contents. Therefore, it is up to the user to verify
that the printer can handle the type of data in the object container. The Infoprint® Server PDF subsystem works like a printer. For information
about the types of images it can accept, see the Infoprint Server
for iSeries™: User's Guide.
Object containers, even though they contain non-OCA objects, are similar
to other AFP resources in these ways:
- They can be mapped. A mapped resource is downloaded once per spooled file,
irrespective of the number of times the resource is referenced within the
spooled file.
- They can be included on a page.
- They can be captured in the printer.
Using object containers has several benefits:
- You can reference several types of MO:DCA objects in a spooled file without having
to include them in an overlay or page segment. These image types are image
data, bar code data and graphics data.
- You can scale and rotate these objects. With page segments and overlays,
you need to create one copy of the object in each orientation needed.
- You can include images larger than 16 MB in your output. If an image exceeds
16 MB, the image cannot be stored as a page segment object.
- Print applications can specify the use of non-OCA objects which refer
to other non-OCA objects, such as color mapping tables (which are printer-resident).
These are called secondary resources.
- Applications can use color objects with Intelligent Printer Data
Stream™ (IPDS™) printers.
- The IBM® Infoprint Server for iSeries licensed program's PDF subsystem accepts
object containers with certain types of images as input.
Related tasks
Obtain AFP resources
Specify an object container
Related information
Infoprint Server for iSeries User's Guide
PDF