208 IBM Content Manager OnDemand Guide
9.1  Overview of data conversion
To work with data conversion, understand the data conversions that are required, and when 
and how to convert the data. Perform detailed planning before you build your solution so that 
you achieve a design that remains efficient for many years. 
In this section, we describe why you might need data conversion, when to convert the data 
stream, and how to convert the data.
9.1.1  Why convert data streams
Y ou might want to convert data streams for many reasons:
/SM590000Certain data streams, such as Hewlett-Packard (HP) Printer Command Language (PCL) 
or Xerox metacode, are printer-specific and cannot be displayed. Before you archive or 
display the documents, these data streams must be transformed into a compatible format.
/SM590000The archived data stream might need to comply with a company’s internal rules or 
regulations. Therefore, the produced data streams must be transformed into the defined 
and required final format before they are archived.
/SM590000The documents might need to be accessible by a user that is outside of the company. The 
document must be displayed through standard tools that are available on any or at least 
most of the clients, such as an Internet browser or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
/SM590000The documents might need to be manipulated so that only part of the document is 
displayed in a personalized way. 
9.1.2  When to convert data streams
The decision of when to convert data streams relies mainly on the use of the system. 
Typically, converting data at load time requires more time to process the print stream file, and 
converting data at retrieval time causes the user retrieval to be a little slower. The decision 
might depend on how many documents are retrieved, compared to how many documents are 
loaded daily. It might also depend on legal requirements about the format of stored data. 
AFP to PDF
If a requirement exists to present AFP documents in the Portable Document Format (PDF) 
format over the web, from a storage perspective, it is more efficient to store the documents in 
their native format and then convert them to PDF at retrieval time. AFP documents are stored 
more efficiently than PDF documents. 
The PDF print stream, when it is divided into separate customer statements, is larger than 
AFP because each statement contains its own set of structures that are required by the PDF 
architecture to define a document. 
Elapsed time and processor time are also essential factors in the decision-making process. 
The amount of time (elapsed and CPU) that is needed to convert the document depends on 
how large the document is and how many resources or fonts are associated with the 
document.