The Control Panel - Brother HL-Series Technical Reference Manual

Revision C 16/01/96
3. Terminology
3.1 Syntax
The following conventions are used in this description of the Epson FX-850 mode software
commands:
A single letter, two or three-letter control code mnemonic, or number in upright bold text is a
literal character and should be sent to the printer as the character code.
A letter or word in italics is a variable and you must substitute an appropriate value when you use
the command.
A statement element enclosed in angle brackets <> consists of a stream of data whose length is
defined within the same command. The data consists of numbers represented by bytes which are
sent to the printer as if they were ASCII character codes.
3.2 Conventions
Although the machine is a laser printer and does not physically have a print head, for the
purposes of this emulation description, we refer to the location on the page at which the printer is
currently positioned to print as the print position.
The printable area is the area of the page where the printer can place a dot.
The bits that comprise a byte of data are numbered 1 to 8. Bit 1 is the least significant bit (LSB)
and bit 8 is the most significant bit (MSB).
The lower case 'L' character is shown as an '
from the character '1' (one).
4. Controlling the printer
Commands are invoked using either control codes or escape sequences. You can send them to the
printer as part of a program, using the same command that you would use to print a string on the
printer. For example in BASIC you would use the LPRINT command.
The printer's control panel can also be used to set various operating parameters. Try to ensure
that the control panel settings and computer generated settings do not conflict with one another,
or you may not get the results you require.

4.1 The control panel

Refer to the User's Guide for a description of how to use the printer's control panel switches.
You should be aware, however, that the following can be set using the control panel: automatic
line feed (a line feed is performed with every carriage return), auto mask (two-line top and
bottom margins are automatically used on every page), paper size, top, bottom, left and right
margins, the number of lines of text per page, orientation (portrait or landscape), the current font
and the emulation mode. Conflict between control panel settings and the settings you establish
with software commands (or from applications software) is by far the most likely cause of
unexpected printing results. Use this manual in conjunction with the User's guide to resolve these
conflicts.
' in the Esc printer command, to distinguish it
Chapter 5 " EPSON FX-850 " - 5