Printing is a process which is governed by physical constraints:
There are several types of printers. Some reports can only be printed on specific printers. For example: Reports which contain logical character sets and/or graphics cannot be printed by an impact printer. Reports which must be produced with carbon paper copies cannot be printed by a laser printer.
There are several types of paper: wide, narrow, blue form, carbon, yellow, and so on.
With laser printers (for example, 3800) it is possible to use physical FLASH. This requires manual intervention by the operator before printing starts.
With some laser printers, the process of switching from one character set to another may take 10 to 20 seconds.
In impact printers, the ribbon may have to be replaced.
The physical constraints described above tend to negate the main purpose of a report distribution system, which is to print all the reports of one user in one bundle.
It is physically impractical to print one bundle for a user containing different types of paper (for example). The operator cannot replace the paper in the printer every few pages. Therefore, it is clear that some physical constraints must be considered when planning the printing process.
In summary, from the operator’s point of view, it is desirable to print all the blue paper together, narrow paper together, and so on.
