Publishing Engine Programmer's Guide > The Arbortext Publishing Engine Sub-Process > Implementing Arbortext PE Applications > Support for Custom Applications with the PTC APP Engine
  
Support for Custom Applications with the PTC APP Engine
When integrating custom Arbortext Publishing Engine application code with the PTC APP formatting engine, be aware of the following options and limitations:
Formatting hooks
The following hooks will not be called when formatting a document using PTC APP:
formatcompletehook
formatcontinuehook
formatpagestatushook
formaterrorhook
Input and configuration files
Layout file
The PTC APP formatting engine does not generate or interact with the layout file. The locations listed in the layout file represent OIDs in the document open in the Edit window. PTC APP does not have access to that document during formatting.
The layout file was created to support the line numbering application, and it is used in other applications to draw constructs such as gutter rules. The same functionality can be achieved in PTC APP in a Arbortext Styler stylesheet or using custom source edits.
TMX files
.tmx files include Tex macro customizations that can be included in your custom/inputs directory. These will not have any effect on formatting when using the PTC APP engine.
EXC and PAT files
.exc and .pat files provide custom hyphenation rules. These are not used by the PTC APP engine.
DCF files
PTC APP does not interact with .dcf files.
PDF configuration files
The PTC APP and FOSI engines use separate PDF configuration files. Refer to Print and PDF Configuration Files for further information.
Script interaction
The FOSI engine can complete certain actions outside of the stylesheet using system functions that call custom ACL code directly during the e-i-c processing of the stylesheet. The PTC APP engine does not use system functions.
Command line differences
Command line functions do not cause the PTC APP engine to format the document. They only work with the FOSI engine.
Printing using startup commands
epic -c "print noformat wait" testfile.xml
Formatting using startup commands (allpasses, onepass, wait)
no format
allpasses
onepass
wait
force
format and all its modifiers: continue, onepass, allpasses, layout, quit, stop
The -v flag for starting up Arbortext Editor.
Passes any valid window arguments to the Print Preview window.
linenum
* 
linenum will run using the FOSI engine even if PTC APP is the effective print engine for the environment. It embellishes the document and shows line numbers in the Edit view. If you subsequently preview using menus, however, PTC APP will run as expected and the line numbers do not show.