About This Manual - Epson U590P Information Manual

CONFIDENTIAL
Introduction
ESC/POS
The market for store automation equipment is changing rapidly with the widespread
introduction of POS (point of sale) terminals. These terminals are now appearing even in small
retail stores and specialty shops. They occupy a secure position in the range of applications
available for personal computers.
As more personal computers come to be used as POS terminals, the demand for matching
standardized peripheral devices is expected to rise. At present, however, many of the competing
POS terminal printer displays on the market employ mutually incompatible command sets. This
imposes limits on the expandability and range of applications possible with PC-based systems.
There is a need for a new command set designed to provide the expandability and universal
applicability demanded by the market.
To meet this need, Seiko Epson Corporation proposes the adoption of a newly developed
command set to standardize POS terminal peripheral devices: ESC/POS (Epson Standard Code
for Point of Sale).
The aim when developing ESC/POS was to create a set of control codes that could be used to
operate any output device connected to a POS terminal. These new codes are intended to replace
the mutually incompatible command sets previously in use.
TM/DM series models already support ESC/POS, and they have been evaluated highly in the
marketplace.
Seiko Epson Corporation plans to produce new models in the TM/DM series offering ESC/POS
support and to continue to work for the standardization of the entire POS environment to
promote the dissemination of ESC/POS.

About This Manual

Rev. A
Chapter 1 contains a table of supported commands, descriptions of all the commands
arranged by function with program examples and print samples, and character code tables.
Chapter 2 contains an example showing several commands used in a program for issuing a
coupon containing bar codes.
Chapter 3 contains a table of the commands listed by function type and a table showing
which commands are supported by various EPSON printers.
i