Bidirectional Printing; Changing Pitches - Epson LX-86TM User Manual

Bidirectional Printing

In nearly all of our discussions in this manual, we describe the
action of the LX-86 print head as moving from left to right, as a
typewriter does. During its normal operation while printing in the
draft mode, however, the LX-86 prints bidirectionally. That is, the
print head goes from left to right only on every other line. On the
other lines it reverses everything and prints right to left.
By reversing both the dot patterns and the printing direction, the
LX-86 produces a line that is correct and looks no different from a
line printed from left to right. It does this to save time. Otherwise, the
time the print head takes to go from the right margin back to the left
would be wasted.
The intelligence of the printer takes care of all the calculations
necessary for this bidirectional printing, so you don't have to be
concerned about it. You simply do your part of the work as if the
printer will be printing from left to right on each line and let the
LX-86 do all the necessary calculations so that you can enjoy the
increased speed.

Changing Pitches

In addition to pica, in which there are
the LX-86 can also print in other widths, or pitches. It
reducing the distance between pin firings. In the elite mode
prints 12 characters per inch
17 characters per inch. The pattern of the dots is not changed, but
the horizontal space between them is reduced.
In Figure 3-2
three pitches. These letters are chosen to show how the LX86 prints
letters that are uppercase and lowercase, wide and narrow, and with
and without descenders (the bottom part of the y).
22
and in the compressed mode it prints
are enlargements of four sample letters in each of the
10 characters per inch,
does so by
i t