Using Printer-Specific Functions With The Bs2000 Printer Type Lp-Emul - Fujitsu Siemens Computers SX series User Manual

Configuring printers

9.5.5 Using printer-specific functions with the BS2000 printer type LP-EMUL

The BS2000 printer type LP-EMUL can be used to operate a number of different physical
printer types (needle, ink jet, band and laser printers).
In order to use the special characteristics of the connected printer, it is necessary to send
not only the print data itself but also the control characters (or control character sequences)
designed for precisely this printer type. These are the so-called Escape sequences. The
printer emulation in X2000 systems makes this possible in the following ways:
Unlike the so-called normal mode in which all non-printing characters are converted into
spaces, transparent mode can be used to transfer control characters present in the print
data to the printer. Transparent mode is activated by means of a PREFORM record (see
below).
You can use the PRM utility (Print Resource Management, see the PRM manual [20])
to define a PREFORM record which can then be assigned to a form. The content of the
PREFORM record is evaluated at the start of the print job and any resulting control
characters are sent to the printer. The PREFORM record contains physical or logical
Escape sequences.
The advantage of logical Escape sequences is that they can be used independently of
the connected printer type.
Defining physical and logical Escape sequences in the PREFORM record
There are no formal rules governing physical Escape sequences since these are printer-
specific character sequences which must be correct for the employed printer type in order
to achieve the desired print result.
A logical Escape sequence has the following format:
\E\E<command>[,<command>]...[,<comment>]...;
The specification \E\E is the ID for logical Escape sequences. The specification is not
case-sensitive. Any spaces between the individual commands are skipped.
Comments start with the hash character (#) and continue until the next comma or semi-
colon. The Escape sequence is evaluated until a semi-colon is reached. If a given function
is not available at the printer in question then the corresponding Escape sequence is
ignored.
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Global X2000 functions
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