Bitmap Fonts - TransAct Epic 3000 Programmer's Manual

T480 Unicode and Fonts
To provide this flexibility, the EPIC 3000 has the ability to link up to 8 fonts together.
When this is done, the first font in the link is searched first. If the character is not
defined, the next font in the link is searched. This process is continued until the
character is found or the last font is searched.
There are two ways to define a linked font. This first is to define a default linked font in
the POR.INI file. If it link font is defined in the POR.INI file, it will be selected as the
default power on font. Selecting font 0 will select the linked font provided that a link font
is defined.
It is also possible to dynamically define a linked font. This requires that the fonts to be
linked be aliased to a font id in the POR.INI file. Defining a linked font does not
necessarily activate it. If the linked font was not already active, it must be selected by
selecting font 0.

Bitmap Fonts

It is possible to use bitmap fonts with the EPIC 3000 Printer. Bitmap fonts are fixed
pitch and are not scalable. They will function as legacy fonts or may be selected. The
printer is supplied with 4 legacy bitmap fonts. They are in a 10x24, 12x24, 16x24 draft
fonts format and a 16x24 OCR B font. They are defined as follows:
BMFont0 = chr10x24.bft 10 x 24 draft font with typical spacing of 16 characters per inch
BMFont1 = chr12x24.bft 12 x 24 draft font with typical spacing of 14 characters per inch
BMFont2 = chr16x24.bft 16 x 24 NLQ font with typical spacing of 12 characters per inch
BMFont4 = ocr16x24.bft 16 x 24 OCR font with typical spacing of 12 characters per inch
It is possible to define a custom bitmap font. Transact supports a bitmap font compiler
that will convert a bitmap font picture file into a compressed bitmap file that may be
loaded into the printer as a bitmap (.bft) font file.
The input to the program is a text file in a predefined format consisting of a font
description followed by character definitions consisting of the character ID and then the
character definition. The format is as follows: (Note lines preceded with # characters are
comments.
# 11 by 24 font with a base line at 22
# F=X is not used in Thermal Products
W=11 H=24 B=22 F=0
; N=0000 U=0000 NULL
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Page 204
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Rev A
T480 Programmer's Guide
SPACE
100-14362