The following information is provided as is, and the authors take no responsibility for the correctness.

AFP - Advanced Function Printing

AFP is used on IBM Mainframes for page printers. It is an architected presentation function set of the Mixed Object Document Content Architecture (MO:DCA), which is part of IBM’s System Application Architecture.

You don’t actually print with AFP. MO:DCA, IPDS - Intelligent Printer Data Stream (Intelligent Printer Data Stream) and other is used for printing. The information we have may be out of date, but it used to contain PTOCA (Print Text Object Content Architecture), GOCA (Graphic Object Content Architecture), IOCA (Image Object Content Architecture) as well as some other, non-SAA descriptors (simple image, for example).

IPDS - Intelligent Printer Data Stream is IBM’s SAA printing language. It handles a variety of bit-mapped fonts, simple graphics primitives, and bit-mapped images. Because of the simplicity of the imaging model, it can be used to drive high speed laser printers.

What's AFP in a nutshell?

An architecture that defines the interchange of data.
A collection of products to manage your information.
- Products for creating, indexing, viewing, distributing, and printing information.
- A way to distribute information directly to the people who need it, who then use the information in whatever format is best.
- A way to immediately enhance your line-printing applications and improve the print quality of your text and graphics applications.
The solution for your information-presentation needs.