Epson GX-80 Operating Manual page 30

When you have inserted a new piece of continuous paper, move the
paper forward until the first perforation sits level with the top of the
ribbon guide using the paper feed knob. You then need to tell the
GX-80 that it is at the top of the paper. You can do this by sending a
software initialization command <ESC>
@
as in Chapter 5, or
more conveniently by switching the power off and on again. When
you move the paper, do so by pressing the ON LINE button so that
the printer is off-line, and then using the LF button to move it up
individual lines or the FF button to move the paper to the top of the
next page. If you do move the paper using the paper feed knob and
you wish to check whether you have disturbed the top of page
setting, use the FF button with the printer off-line to move the paper
to where the GX-80 thinks the top of page is. Having found that it is
not at the perforation, tum the paper feed knob to move the per-
foration to be in line with the top of the ribbon guide.
The distance travelled by the page when you press the FF button or
when computer sends a form feed command is normally 11 inches.
If your pages are of a different length you can adjust the length in
two ways. One of the DIP switches described in Appendix D allows
you to specify the page length as 11 or 12 inches. You can also
specify the length using a code sequence. There are two ways to
make the specification. The code <ESC> C sets the length of the
page by the number of lines at the current line spacing. The code
<ESC> CO sets the page length as a number of inches. The full
syntax for using these codes is given in Appendix C.
Paper-Out Sensor
Under the platen (the black roller) of the GX-80 printer is a small
switch that senses whether or not paper is in the printer. When the
end of the paper passes this switch, it sends a signal that sounds the
beeper and stops the printing. This is not only to save wear on the
print head, ribbon and platen, but necessary to make sure that
printing stops if you are printing a document on single sheets of
paper and have to change the paper. The switch is at the back of the
platen and so some distance from the head and so printing stops
about 2 inches from the end of the page. Therefore, if you use
single-sheet paper in the GX-80, you cannot print on the last 2
inches of each page without overriding this feature.
50
(,
' '
The paper-out sensor can be deactivated in two ways. One is a
temporary solution using the code sequence <ESC> 8 to deactivate
the paper-out sensor. You can send the <ESC> 9 code to set it on
again. The second method is to permanently deactivate it by chang-
ing one of the DIP switches as described in Appendix D.
Although you can print to the end of the page with single-sheet
paper, you must be careful. If the computer software does not real-
ize you have to change the paper and does not tell you to change the
paper and signal you have done so, printing will continue onto the
platen and the text you are trying to print out will have to be
reprinted from that point. Most word processors have an option to
allow you to work with single sheets of paper.
Skip-Over Perforation
If you are using continuous pin-feed paper for printing program
listings or other material not controlled by an applications program,
yoti may find that the GX-80 prints right over the perforations be-
tween pages. The GX-80 has an <ESC> code to prevent this: the
<ESC> N command. You send <ESC> N followed by the number
of lines you want the GX-80 to skip at the bottom of a page. For
example, in BASIC the following line will make the GX-80 skip six
lines after each 60 lines:
10 PRINT CHR$(27)"N"CHR$(6);
Since a standard page is 66 lines, this will give you one inch of blank
space at the bottom of each page. If you prefer to have half of the
blank space at the top of the page and half at the bottom, simply set
the top of page approximately three lines (1/2 inch) below the per-
foration as described above.
Margins
The GX-80 allows you to set the left and right margins with simple
<ESC> sequences. The left margin command is <ESC> l followed
by the number of the column you choose for the left margin. The
right margin command is <ESC>
Q
followed by the column num-
ber of the right margin you want. For the left margin command, be
sure to use a lower case letter I, not the figure one.
51