AFP & IPDS: Expert for 40 years

Presentation of Intelligent Printing Formats AFP & IPDS

IPDS (Intelligent Printer Data Stream) is the Page Description Language (PDL) for online printing of Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) documents.

AFP Processing: Our Area of Expertise for 40 Years

Created by IBM in 1984 as part of the Systems Application Architecture (SAA), the Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) architecture can be used in “online” mode, known as AFP/IPDS. It enables bidirectional communication between systems and printers, informing systems of available resources and printer status, allowing instant error recovery, and more.

AFP: The Industry Standard

AFP is the most widely used format for high-speed transactional printing in various sectors, including banking, finance, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, education, and more. Its strong compression resistance capability enables the generation of print files consisting of millions of pages with minimal file size. This high performance allows for the transmission of substantial volumes to production printers.

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Several Multi-platform AFP Solutions Available at MPI Tech

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Online & Offline Printing

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AFP: the Industry Standard

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Unrivaled Processing Speed Performance

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“AFP is generated by so-called ‘critical’ applications that produce large quantities of variable documents, for example, in sectors such as insurance or banking.”

“These applications must ensure reliable reproduction of prints or their visualization and, above all, complete data integrity.”

– AFP Consortium –

MPI Tech is an administrator of the AFP Consortium.

AFP & IPDS

Files in AFP format can be printed in “offline” mode using AFPDS format. In this case, the standard is converted on-the-fly into the most popular Page Description Language (PDL) (with no printer state control or printer resource availability check, and no error recovery).

AFP can also be printed in “online” mode through various software applications such as PSF (Print Service Facility) on an IBM system or through a spooler like S2P, IPM, creating on-the-fly IPDS format streams and offering complete bidirectional control of the printing operation.

MPI Tech

Since 1988, MPI Tech has developed a comprehensive range of solutions (both software and hardware) for converting AFPDS to various Page Description Languages (PDLs) like PCL, PDF, PS, and more, on nearly all available platforms (Mainframe, PowerSystems, Windows, AIX, Linux, Solaris, Unix…).

As a founding member and administrator of the AFP Consortium™, MPI Tech supports the latest advancements in this technology. The AFP Consortium is an international group that brings voices from across the print industry together to keep the AFP architecture up-to-date and continuously improved. Members collaborate to ensure that this stable, efficient, and flexible architecture continues to thrive even as the printing world evolves.

AFP Conversions

AFP to PDF and PDF/A
AFP to PCL

AFP to PostScript
PDF to AFP

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