Job / JobData

Overview

Printing (or more general: producing output) is done with the help of a so-called Job. A Job prints a stand-alone or Repository based FormLayout with dynamic data provided by JobData.

A Job provides various methods for controlling the output behavior. Among other functions it is possible

• to select the target device and the required output format (Output Format Prefixes),
• set Job options (Print Options),
• and to select a specific configuration file (TFORMer.XML Configuration File).

Workflow

The basic steps to generate output are as follows:

1. Select a FormLayout
2. Create JobData
   JobData is used to pass dynamic data to a Job.
3. Provide data for JobData
   The JobData is use to provide values for the DataFields required for the FormLayout to be printed.
   Provide data programmatically or instruct JobData to use a DataSource already defined in the FormLayout (e.g. importing data from a CSV file or a ODBC database). See JobDataRecordSet, JobDataCsv, JobDataOdbc, JobDataXml, JobDataDataSource
4. Create a Job
   The Job class is the main class for printing a FormLayout.
5. Assign the JobData to the Job
   If no JobData is assigned to a Job, the default data for the FormLayout is used. This default data is identical to the data-set which was used for printing or previewing the FormLayout in the last TFORMer Designer session.
6. Adjust the properties of the Job
   The most important properties are the output-type and the name of the target device (setOutputName, setPrinterType or setPrinterName). The order in which the properties are set is irrelevant.
7. Print the Job
   To generate the Job based on the FormLayout and JobData in the required output format use one of the print-methods (print, printToStream, printToStreams) provided by a Job.

More Information

• JobData
  Base class for JobData