Job XML

The Job XML format for PrintFactory is very specific and case sensitive.  Therefore when submitting jobs please ensure you follow the syntax detailed below.

Measurements

PrintFactory has a common internal measurement standard which is used across all processes.  Therefore when specifying measurements in XML it is important that the following format is used:
1″ is 18 units in PrintFactory, 1 unit equals 1/18″. So for instance the the value for 1″ is 18.  And 1/18″ can be expressed as 0.055555.  For rounding accuracy we work to 5 decimal places.

Job Ticket

The PrintFactory job ticket should use version 1.0 XML schema
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″ ?>
The ticket should start and end with a Job tag and at least contain the following items:

<Job>
   <GUID>96f8ada6-0a69-48a3-9599-012b5634087d</GUID>
   <Name>Multicopy Example</Name>
   <User>MultiCopy Test</User>
   <JobType>Regular</JobType>
   <Print>true</Print>
   <PDFJob>
      <InputJobs>
         <FilePath Copies="2" IsTemporary="false">/Files/castle_api.pdf</FilePath>
         <FilePath Copies="3" IsTemporary="false">/Files/G180770.pdf</FilePath>
      </InputJobs>
   </PDFJob>
</Job>

Copies is optional however all other components are required.
GUID must be unique and in the valid format – an example can be found here.
The file path must be valid and accessible to the RIP without further authentication.

Job Submission

There are several ways to submit a job to the PrintFactory workflow:

Hotfolder

This is the most basic way of submitting jobs, simply dropping a job ticket into the hot folder of a Printer Queue will enable the RIP to process those jobs sequentially through the queue.  Any custom settings applied to the job ticket will over rule the queue settings.

Uploader

The Uploader can be used to submit jobs to the PrintFactory Cloud.  There are various ways to submit:

  • Drag and drop files directly to the uploader
  • Drag and drop XML job ticket to the uploader (useful for testing)
  • Create a hotfolder to submit job tickets directly from an MIS
  • You can also choose to submit the jobs + XML via the cloud or just the XML.

More info about the Uploader can be found here.

Cloud API

Jobs can also be submitted directly to the Cloud API.
Dynamic nesting needs 3 things to be able to process jobs using this method:
Thumbnail – to show the thumbnail of the job in the UI a thumbnail must be uploaded – you can see the format of this post here.
Valid Job Ticket – The format of a job ticket and submission method is shown here.
Job Dimensions in PrintFactory format:

Single Page

<SrcPageWidth>225</SrcPageWidth>
<SrcPageHeight>162.5</SrcPageHeight>

Scaling

<Scale X=“0.822365” Y=“0.822365" />

Multipage documents:

<Part>
   <GUID>96f8ada6-0a69-48a3-9599-012b3422087d</GUID>
   <DocumentGUID>fb5e35a7-66f1-46a8-bac4-5d91943cda2e</DocumentGUID>
   <SourcePage>0</SourcePage>
   <DestinationPage>1</DestinationPage>
   <Side>A</Side>
   <SrcPageWidth>225</SrcPageWidth>
   <SrcPageHeight>162.5</SrcPageHeight>
</Part>

A good way to verify the input against the required output format is to submit a job manually through the RIP and check the resulting settings.xml in the PrintFactory/Work folder for the specific job.  This contains all job processing info and parts can be reused in the submission process.
A full list of XML job tags can be found here:

Job XML Definition

Updated on May 19, 2022

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