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Conditional Processing or Embedded Commands

Question:

Is it better to use Conditional Processing or Invoke Media Map/Invoke Data Map (IMM/IDM) commands when more than two pageformats and copygroups are to be used in a single datastream?

Answer:

There is no absolute answer. The general rule of thumb is if the application can be modified, the using the IMM/IDM structure is best because it gives the highest level of control when changing pageformats and copygroups. Keep in mind that under some circumstances, it is more complex than using Conditional Processing. However, if you have a legacy application that cannot be  modified, the choice would be to use Conditional Processing, assuming there is sufficient unique information in each page's data to trigger the change.

Check out the Page Printer Formatting Aid (PPFA) reference materials available from IBM at:

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/search.wss?rs=0&lang=en&loc=en_US&r=10&cs=iso-8859-1&rankfile=0&cc=us&spc=&stc=&apar=include&q1=ppfa&q2=&sort=desc&tc=&Go.x=10&Go.y=12&dc=DA410+DA450&dtm

and

Mixed Object Document Content Architecture (MO:DCA) reference materials available from IBM at:

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/search.wss?rs=95&lang=all&loc=en_US&r=10&cs=utf-8&rankfile=0&cc=us&spc=&stc=&apar=exclude&dr=all&q1=S544-3285-05%2C+OR+S544-3884-03%2C+OR+SC31-6802-06%2C+OR+S544-3766-05%2C+OR+S544-3417-06%2C+OR+SC31-6805-05%2C+OR+S544-5498-01%2C+OR+SC31-6804-01%2C+OR+SC31-6803-02%2C+OR+G544-5876-02%2C+OR+%22IPDS+Extension%3A+TrueType%2FOpenType+Fonts%22&sort=desc&tc=&Go.x=6&Go.y=15&dc=DA400+DB300+DA100+DA110+DA120+DB100+DA700+DA450+DA300&dtm

If you would like some additional information on PPFA or MO:DCA or