Actually, we receive the data in the form of a text file. The original data is sent from an IBM mainframe then to Ottawa where it is captured by an "SNA Print Server that receives the VPS print jobs, writes them to disk and then runs a PERL script program on the disk file. This PERL script program scans the file's VPS banner page for key words (e.g. JobName, Destination, Form) and then creates a Plain Text and a Rich Text Format (RTF)." This system is available Nationally for every region in Canada. It is unfortunate that our government has been so slow in updating such an old process.
Since I don't really know (or have access to) the inner workings of the mainframe or the conversion process, I can't really do much there. The reason why I don't wish to simply replace the printer simply convert it so it can be used on newer printers is because the data will also be used to automate tasks (such as creating form letters to clients). -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
