Faster Hardcopies Using A Pcl5 Printer; Customizing Page Layout - HP 8712ET User Manual Supplement

Saving Measurement Results
Using Hardcopy Features to Print or Plot Results

Faster Hardcopies using a PCL5 Printer

If your printer supports PCL5, be sure to select PCL5 format under
Select Copy Port . PCL5 uses HP-GL format, resulting
HARDCOPY
in very fast, high-resolution hardcopies. PCL5 can result in a speed
improvement of up to 10 times, compared to using raster formats such as
PCL, Epson-compatible, or PCX. Since the analyzer measurement speed
decreases while performing hardcopy rasterization, using PCL5 format
will restore your measurements to full speed more quickly.
Some printers that support PCL-5 include:
• HP LaserJet 4, 5
• HP Color LaserJet

Customizing Page Layout

Custom hardcopy output, such as 2 or 4 plots per page, can be done using
a PCL5 printer and IBASIC or SCPI commands. To do this you should:
1. Put the printer into HP-GL mode.
2. Send the printer an "IP" HP-GL command.
3. Perform a hardcopy dump in HP-GL format.
These steps are discussed in detail below.
Put the Printer into HP-GL Mode
In order to send HP-GL hardcopy output to your PCL-5 printer, you must
first instruct the printer to accept HP-GL commands. On some printers,
this can be done using the printer's built-in menu. You can also send the
printer a PCL-5 escape sequence to instruct it to accept HP-GL. This can
be done using IBASIC or SCPI commands. Refer to your printer manual
for details. Refer, also, to the example program titled "FAST_PRT" on the
Example Programs Disk. This program configures your PCL5 printer to
accept HP-GL commands.
Automating Measurements 8-9