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Command Code Summary
This appendix contains a summary of the command codes
sets handled by the resident emulation.
Introduction
A printer command consists typically of one or more
characters imbedded in the flow of data transmitted to the
printer. To make the printer understand which characters
are to be interpreted as commands and which as printable
characters, there is a simple built-in convention: all
"characters" that have, according to the character table, a
decimal value less than 32 are interpreted as control codes.
Some of them result in an action, when they are received,
others do not. The ones causing printer action can be found
in the command code description. There is also a special
command ESCAPE (decimal code 27, named ESC) which is
used by most printer emulations to open a command
sequence. It is followed by one or more additional
characters, which are identifiers and parameters, belonging
to the printable characters or to those from the range of
control codes.
If your printer receives commands which are not compatible
with the emulation in use, it will ignore them, print them as
normal characters or even block. Whatever happens, no
serious harm will be done to your printer. To clear the
situation, just reset the printer (hold On Line and press
Form Feed for approximately 3 seconds).
Command Code Summary
PCL III + Multiple ESCape Sequences
If the consecutive ESCape sequences you send to the
printer have the same two characters after the character
ESC, you can save time by sending a single multiple ESC
sequence to the printer. This multiple sequence will consist
of the ESC character, the two common character which
follow ESC and the remaining characters of each individual
command.
E.g.: if you have to send the sequences: ESC ( s 3 B,
ESC ( s 3 T and ESC ( s 1 Q, you can do so using the
multiple sequence ESC ( s 3 b 3 t 1 Q. Note that the last
character of the first two sequences "B" and "T" have
become lower case ("b" and "t" respectively), while the last
character of the last sequence ("Q") has remained
upper-case (indicating, thus, the end of the multiple
sequence).
PCL III + Attribute Selection Priority
Font
The font selection MUST ALWAYS be indicated in the
following order:
1. Print orientation (PORTRAIT or LANDSCAPE)
2. Character set (CP 437, etc.)
3. Character position on the print line (normal, superscript,
subscript)
4. Spacing (fixed or proportional)
C-1
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