Printing - To Locally Attached Printers

Host applications can generate print output (such as multi-page reports), and send that output to a printer associated with your terminal session. The terminal to printer association is administered on the host.

To print to a locally-attached printer - that is, a printer directly accessible from an end-user's local system - you need to select the "Enable Host Printing to Local Printers" attribute on the Print page of your session preferences. This activates JET 3270's 3287 support, and requires that the host system support the TN3270E (Extended TN3270) protocols - specifically in terms of supporting printer sessions over those TN3270E connections. JET 3270 provides support for both LU Type 1 and LU Type 3 printer sessions with the host.

If you change the "Enable Host Printing to Local Printers" attribute and you are already connected to the host system, you should disconnect and reconnect for the change to take effect.

The events that occur when enabling host printing to locally-attached printers are:

JET 3270 connects to the host for the terminal session.
After successfully negotiating options with the host, JET 3270 connects again to the host for a printer session. It specifically requests that the printer session be associated with the terminal session just started.
The end-user is then free to use the terminal connection as they would normally, with the print connection remaining idle.
When the end-user initiates a print operation, JET 3270 sends the keys supplied to the host (on the terminal connection).
The host application then starts the print operation, which results in the print output being sent to JET 3270 on the printer connection described above.
JET 3270 displays a print dialogue to the end-user, requesting the printer to which to send the output.
After the end-user selects a printer and clicks OK on the print dialogue, JET 3270 sends the print output to the printer they specified.

Each host application usually has its own method of initiating a print operation - sometimes expecting the end-user to press a specific function key, and sometimes expecting a specific command. Normally the host application clearly indicates how you should start a print operation, but if you are in doubt, consult the documentation for that particular host application.

In many cases, system administrators for the host will set up what is known as an LU "pool" - a group of terminal definitions which are identical apart from their name. They may configure an LU pool which enables the dynamic mapping of terminal connections to printer connections required for this feature. It is therefore important that you check with your host system administrator(s), and determine if you need to connect to a particular LU pool. If you do, set the "LU Resource Name" attribute on the Telnet Options page of your session preferences to the name of the LU pool.