Manifest print style

[J9CMOD]

We have a distribution that is set up to print a number of output sets, when available.
That works great.  However, when I add the manifest, it does not start at the beginning of a new page.
I've tried several combinations of customer variables, and nothing works right.
Does anybody know of a parm, or something, that we can set so the manifest always prints at the top of a new page.

DETAILS:
-  We are using an email system external to CMOD, so all bundles are sent to the output queue.
-  All Report IDs within the bundles go to separate pages, as needed, except for the manifest
-  We have no way of determining which of the reports will be the last report for that day, so we are not able to put an "end banner" on the last report.
-  I have tried adding a customer variable member that just adds a "top of page", but it doesn't work

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I have tried the following Customer Variable combinations:
B=N  (WITH ANYTHING ON H= & T=) - System is not able to email the output
B=Y H=Y T=Y    -  Adds unwanted pages between the ReportIDs within the bundle (unacceptable), but forces manifest to a new page
B=Y H=N T=Y   - No unwanted extra pages between ReportIDs, but manifest starts at the bottom of the last ReportID
b=y H=Y T=N  - Adds unwanted pages between the ReportIDS within the bunde, and manifest prints at the bottom of the last ReportID
B=Y H=N T=N  - No unwanted extra pages between ReportIDs, but manifest starts at the bottom of the last ReportID

Thanks,
J9

[Greg Ira]

Just a shot in the dark.  We had a similar issue (we're on 9.5) where the manifest was being generated with a different RecFM than the rest of the output therefore the top of form was never going to be recognized.  If you're on 9.5 see if you have PTF  UI50164  applied

[J9CMOD]

Thanks Greg, I have my Production Control resource checking now.  I'm pretty sure we have the same "cause" as you; I'll let you know. 

[J9CMOD]

Yes, we have that PTF applied.  I guess it doesn't fix the problem for us.

[J9CMOD]

May not be the best solution, overall, but I found a work-around for us.
(In short) since the output I was working with was always the same size, I set up our email system to accept a specific number of lines for them, which forces a new page before the manifest.
Thanks for your suggestion, though!

[scottnys]

J9,
    Do you customize your Banner and Manifest programs?  The Banner is invoked multiple times and can place the banner at the end.

One of the problems we had with the Manifest is the fact that "assumptions" were made by IBM.  We deal with reports of varying widths (80-133, with others).  I believe they changed the manifest to always print 80.  The spooled output DD was also assumed at one point (the LRECL).
The other thing was the "assumption" that all reports are ANSII printer controls.  Old Cobol programs (can) generate Machine Printer codes.  The Banner program IS passed the RECFM of the Spooled DATASET.  This allowed the Banner for Force a Page Break by added a TOP-OF-FORM character, as needed.  If your Bundle is mixing and matching, that would cause this issue.  The Manifest program was NOT passed the RECFM and could NOT put out a Machine TOP-OF-FORM character. 
Part of the fix from IBM that Greg mentioned changed the communication area passed to the Manifest to include the RECFM of the spooled Dataset.  That way the manifest could intelligently output the correct top-of-form character for the Reports being printed.

[J9CMOD]

Thanks scottnys.
Your shop sounds a lot like ours.
Yes, we have customized exits for a all the reasons you mentioned, plus a few more.  From what I read in the manuals, etc, I figured it was an issue with the exit not passing the information to the manifest exit, but was trying to avoid having to change our exits.  We have 4 different exits to handle the scenarios we need, and changes to our Cobol programs take several weeks to get implemented in Production. 
I have put this issue on our back burner, to re-visit when we are more stable, and am using the work around in the meantime.  All the details you supplied will be helpful in my documentation - thanks for taking the time to respond!