When both the server and ATE are at edit 1208+ and the server-side printer-init option PRTCOPIES is FALSE (this is the default for UNIX and whenever DEVICE=AUXLOC:), the server will now send just one physical copy of the printfile to the aux port and will tell the client how many copies to print. The previous method, in which multiple copies were generated on the server side, unbeknownst to the client, remains in effect for non-ATE clients and whenever the either the server or ATE client is older than 5.1.1208, and when PRTCOPIES=TRUE on the server side.
The motivation for adding this further bit of confusion to an already confusing area is to overcome three negative aspects associated with generating the copies on the server side:
| • | If the server generates the copies, the client doesn't realize it has more than one copy, and thus if displaying a printer dialog, would show only one copy, which can confuse the user (who is expecting multiple copies). If the user tries to "correct" the number of copies, the result would be copies upon copies (e.g. 4 instead of 2, 9 instead of 3, etc.) |
| • | APEX would show a single document consisting of the concatenation of the multiple copies. For example, if the original document had 4 pages and 3 copies were requested, APEX would show a 12 page document. (If you then redirect this to a non-paper device, like a PDF writer, you'd end up with a document containing the multiple sets of pages, which is silly.) |
| • | Sending the original printfile to the client multiple times is not particularly efficient, and could cause significant delays for large files. |
