Compaq 5525B-31-32 User Manual

PCL®-II Programmer’s Reference Manual

5525B/31/32 Line Matrix Printer

5525B/31/32 Line Matrix Printer PCL®-II Programmer’s Reference Manual

P/N 422932-001

Compaq® makes no representations or warranties of any kind regarding this material, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Compaq shall not be held responsible for errors contained herein or any omissions from this material or for any damages, whether direct, indirect, incidental or consequential, in connection with the furnishing, distribution, performance or use of this material. The information in this manual is subject to change without notice.

This document contains proprietary information protected by copyright. No part of this document may be reproduced, copied, translated or incorporated in any other material in any form or by any means, whether manual, graphic, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Compaq.

T rademark Acknowledgements

IBM and Proprinter are registered trademarks, and PC-DOS is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.

Compaq is a registered trademark of Compaq Computer Corporation. Epson is a registered trademark of Seiko Epson Corporation. Hewlett-Packard, HP and PCL are registered trademarks of Hewlett-Packard

Company. IGP, PGL, LinePrinter Plus, and Printronix are registered trademarks of

Printronix, Inc. QMS is a registered trademark, and Code V is a trademark of Quality Micro

Systems, Inc. This product uses Intellifont Scalable typefaces and Intellifont technology.

Intellifont is a registered trademark of Agfa Division, Miles Incorporated (Agfa).

CG, Garth Graphic, Intellifont, and Type Director are registered trademarks, and Shannon and CG Triumvirate are trademarks of Agfa Division, Miles Incorporated (Agfa). CG Bodoni, CG Century Schoolbook, CG Goudy Old Style, CG Melliza, Microstyle, CG Omega, and CG Palacio are products of Agfa Corporation. CG Times, based on Times New Roman under license from The Monotype Corporation Plc is a product of Agfa.

Univers is a registered trademark of Linotype AG and/or its subsidiaries. Letraset is a registered trademark, and Aachen, Revue and University Roman

are trademarks of Esselte Pendaflex Corporation.

Futura is a registered trademark of Fundición Tipográfica Neufville, S.A. ITC Avant Garde Gothic, ITC Benguiat, ITC Bookman, ITC Century, ITC

Cheltenham, ITC Clearface, ITC Galliard, ITC Korinna, ITC Lubalin Graph, ITC Souvenir, ITC Tiepolo, ITC Zapf Chancery, and ITC Zapf Dingbats are registered trademarks of International Typeface Corporation.

Albertus, Gill Sans, and Times New Roman are registered trademarks, and Monotype Baskerville is a trademark of The Monotype Corporation Plc, registered in the U.S. Pat. and TM office and elsewhere.

Hiroshige and Marigold are trademarks of AlphaOmega Typography, Inc.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction.............................................. ...............9

About This Guide................................... ...... ....... ...... ....... ...... .............. 9

Warnings and Special Information ................................................ 9

Related Product Information ......................................................... 9

Software Features ................................. ...... ....... ................................. 10

2 HP PCL-II ............................................................. 11

Introduction.......................................................................................... 11

HP PCL-II Emulation Default Settings........................................... 12

Switching Between the Emulat io ns .............................................. . 12

Configuring the PCL-II Emulation with Control Codes......................... 13

Printer Feature Set Compatibility .................................................. 13

General Information ...................................................................... 14

Escape Sequences ....................................................................... 15

Programmable Reset .................................................................... 18

Character Font Selection ................ ...... ....................................... . 19

Printing in the Hex 80 through Hex FF Region.............................. 22

Print Pitch Selection ...................................................................... 22

Character Style Selection................ ...... ....... ...... ....... ...... .............. 22

Character Density Selection.................. ....................................... . 23

Switching Character Fonts ............................................................ 25

Display Functions Mode................................................................ 26

Self-test......................................................................................... 26

Print Mode Selection ..................................................................... 26

Line Spacing ................................................................................. 27

Vertical Forms Control (VFC)........................................................ 27

Standard (Computed) VFC............................................................ 27

Programmable VFC....................................................................... 29

Logical Page Length Selection...................................................... 37

Text Length (Vertical Margin) Selection........................................ 38

Perforation Skip Mode................................................................... 38

Horizontal Margin Selection .......................................................... 39

Transparent Print Data.................................................................. 39

Cursor Control............................................................................... 40

Raster Graphics ............................................................................ 41

Underlining.................................................................................... 42

Table of Contents

Character Overstrike................. ...... ...... ....... ...... ....... ...... .............. 43

Bar Codes ................................................................. ...... .............. 43

US Postnet Barcodes.................................................................... 52

4.0 CPI (20 Bars per inch) US POSTNET Bar Code .................... 55

A Standard ASCII Character Set................ .............57

1 Introduction

About This Guide

WARNING

CAUTION

IMPORTANT

Your printer comes equipped with the standard Hewlett-Packard® Printer Control Language (PCL detail.

Programmer’s Reference Manual

The the information you need to use and configure your Compaq Series printer.

-II) emulation. This manual explains the emulation in

is designed so that you can quickly find

5525B/31/32

Warnings and Special Information

Read and comply with all information highlighted under special headings:

Conditions that could harm you as well as damage the equipment. Conditions that could damage the printer or related equipment. Information vital to proper operation of the printer.

NOTE: Information affecting printer operation.

Related Product Information

Refer to the following books for printer operation:

•

Compaq 5525B/31/32 Line Matrix Printer User’s Manual

Provides information about installing and using your printer, basic operational procedures, configuration instructions, and troubleshooting guidelines. Describe s the key s on the cont rol pan el and pr ov ide s quick reference information on routine printer operations such as loading paper and replacing ribbons.

•

Compaq 5525B/31/32 Line Matrix Printer LinePrinter Plus Programmer’s Reference Manual

Covers the host control codes and programming information for the LinePrinter Plus and Epson

emulations, including P-Series, IBM® Proprinter® XL

FX.

•

Compaq 5525B/31/32 Line Matrix Printer Maintenance Manual

This manual is not shipped with the printer, but can be ordered. It explains how to maintain and repair the 5525B/31/32 Series printer at the field service level of maintenance. This manual covers alignments and adjustments, preventive and corrective maintenance, troubleshooting, and basic principles of operation.

Chapter 1 Software Features

Software Features

The PCL-II emulation software provides the following features:

• Graphics and a selection of print densities. You can enable graphics

mode and specify a density mode (dots per inch).

• Print Attributes. Characters can be bold, italic, double high, double wide,

etc.

• Page Formatting. PCL-II commands allow you to set line spacing, page

length, and vertical forms control.

• Font Typefaces. Also referred to as print modes. The five typefaces

include Near Letter Q uality (NLQ), Data Processing (DP), High Speed (HS), OCR A, and OCR B.

• Character Sets. Forty-seven character sets are available. You can print

the character sets in the different print modes. (OCR A and B character sets must be printed in OCR A and OCR B print modes.)

• Bar codes. Several bar codes are available, including Code 3 of 9,

Industrial 2 of 5, Interleaved 2 of 5, UPC A, EAN 8, EAN 13, UCC/EAN128, UPCE, Royal Mail, Postnet 11.3 cpi, and Postnet 4 cpi.

2 HP PCL-II

Introduction

This chapter describes the HP® PCL-II emulation host control codes that are supported for your 5525B/31/32 Series printer. Emulation refers to the ability of a printer to execute the commands of a particular printer control language. A printer control language is the coding system used to convey, manipulate, and print data. It contains character codes and command sequences that configure the emulation. In this manual, the terms emulation, printer protocol, and printer control language are synonymous.

In the HP PCL-II emulation mode, your printer can print files coded for the HP PCL-II printer control language. To select the PCL-II emulation mode as the active printer emulation, select PCL-II in the ACTIVE EMULATION menu and then the PCL-II menu will appear under the EMULATION menu, as described

Compaq 5525B/31/32 Line Matrix Printer User’s Manual

in the The PCL-II emulation provides many configurable parameters. The default

parameter values for this emulation are shown in Table 1. You can modify the emulation parameter values in two ways:

• The PCL-II host control codes. An extensive set of PCL-II control code

commands can be sent to the printer from an attached host computer via the host data stream. Most of this chapter is devoted to describing the PCL-II control code commands.

• The printer configuration menus. You can modify a subset of the PCL-II

emulation parameters using the printer configuration menus and control panel keys as described in the

User’s Manual

A parameter value set by a host control code overrides a value set from the printer’s control panel.

NOTE: Configuration values selected from the menus or via host control

codes can be saved to memory so that they will not be lost when you power off the printer. The menu selection for saving a configuration to memory is described in the

User’s Manual.

Compaq 5525B/31/32 Line Matrix Printer

Chapter 2 Introduction

HP PCL-II Emulation Default Settings

The factory settings for the PCL-II emulation menu options are shown in

Table 1. Host control codes can override the settings for these menu options.

Primary/Secondary Character Set

ID 0 Symbol Set Roman-8(8U) Pitch 10.0 cpi Density Data Processing

Page Length Representation Inches/Page

Table 1. PCL-II Menu Option Factory Settings

Parameter Default Setting

Graphics Density 60 dpi Perforation Skip Disable Display Functions Disable LF after CR Disable CR after LF Enable CR after FF Enable CR after VT Enable PTX Linefeed Disable LPI Adjust 6 LPI Page L. /Lines 66 lines Page L. /Inches 11 Inches

Switching Between the Em ulations

The printer supports four emulations: PCL-II (the default), LinePrinter Plus,

Code V™ and IGP

which to choose: P-Series, Proprinter III XL, and Epson FX-1050.

/PGL®. The LinePrinter Plus has three protocols from

You can switch between PCL-II and any of the LinePrinter Plus protocols by sending one of the following commands:

ESC%-00000X Switches from PCL-II to P-Series ESC%-00001X Switches from PCL-II to Proprinter III XL ESC%-00002X Switches from PCL-II to Epson FX-1050 SFCC|};K0 Switches from any of the LinePrinter Plus emulations

to PCL-II

Printer Feature Set Compatibility

NOTE: The SFCC is the Special Function Control Code. From the P-Series

protocol, this code is selectable from the front panel. The default value is hex 01. For the Proprinter and Epson emulations, the SFCC is always the ESC (hex 1B) character.

Configuring the PCL-II Emulation with Control Codes

The remainder of this chapter describes the PCL-II printer control language codes that may be sent from a host computer attached to the printer.

The escape (ESC) control code is used to select most of the programmable features.

Commands and control codes sent from a host system override settings in the configuration menus. However, any configuration settings from host control codes will be gone once the printer is powered off (or reset to the default

never

values). Host control codes are menu. In order to save a configuration, it is necessary to select the desired options from the front panel and save the options to one of the printers eight user-selectable configurations. The for saving changes to the printer memory.

reflected in the PCL-II configuration

User’s Manual

describes the menu option

Printer Feature Set Compatibility

PCL-II standardizes printer features and user access of these features, providing compatibility between HP printers. PCL-II is structured in five feature levels:

• Level I Print and Space

• Level II EDP

• Level III Word Processing

• Level IV Page Formatting

• Level V Enhanced Page Formatting

Each PCL level supersedes features of the levels below it. The 5525B/31/32 printers are Level II printers, meaning that all applications for Level I and II printers will operate correctly on your printer with no modifications.

In addition to supporting Level I and Level II features, the printer supports a limited set of additional features that may not be supported by other HP products. Applications written using these additional features may not operate as intended on other Hewlett-Packard printers which do not have these capabilities.

Chapter 2 Configuring the PCL-II Emulation with Control Codes

General Information

Programmatic Printer Control

Control codes and multi-character escape sequences are used to control the printers.

The printers execute command parameters in the order they are received. Therefore, the order of the parameters is significant. Unrecognized escape sequences are ignored in their entirety and may cause erroneous printing since the printer may be unable to perform the requested operation.

Logical and Physical Pages

The limits of the logical page determine the area in which printing can take place. Logical page length is set programmatically (in lines per page). Physical page length is set via the control panel and indicates the actual size of a single page. The physical page length cannot be changed programmatically. Refer to the

User’s Manual

for more information.

Table 2. Control Codes

Function Symbol Binary Level Description

Backspace BS 1000 II Move one column left. Horizontal

Tab

Line Feed LF

Form Feed FF

Carriage Return

Shift Out SO 1110 I Select following characters from the current

Shift In SI 1111 I Select following characters from the current

CR 1101 I Move to the left margin on current print line

1001 V Move the current active position to the next

tab stop on the current line. The tab stops are at the left margin and every 8th column between the left and right margins. If new position crosses the right margin, the new position is set to the right margin.

1010 I Move to next print line while maintaining

current column position

1100 I Move to first line at top of the next page while

maintaining current column position

secondary character font until receipt of a Shift In

primary character font until receipt of a Shift Out

Escape ESC

11011 I The following characters are a special control

sequence

Escape Sequences

An escape sequence consists of the ESC control code followed by one or more characters in succession. Both two-character and structured escape sequences control the printer. Two-character escape sequences take the form ESCX, where X is a character from the ASCII table (0 through ~). Structured escape sequences take the following form:

ESCXy[parameter]Z This sequence is explained below:

ESCXy Prefix. This part of the escape sequence indicates that the

escape sequence is structured and also specifies which type of

control is being performed. “X” is referred to as the structured character; “y” is referred to as the group character.

Parameter This string of ASCII characters specifies a value (either numeric

or alphanumeric).

Z Terminator. This ASCII character indicates the function to which

the previous parameter value applies. If this character is lower case (a,b,c, etc.), it indicates a combined escape sequence, meaning that more structured information will follow. If the character is upper case (A,B,C, etc.), it terminates the escape sequence string.

NOTE: Brackets [ ] are shown in many of the escape sequences for

clarification purposes, but are not actually part of the escape sequence. For example, the brackets in the escape sequence for selecting page length (ESC&l[1-128]P) specify a range of values (1 through 128) for page length. To specify a page length of 35 lines, the escape sequence ESC&l35P would be sent to the printer.

Combining Escape Sequences

Structured escape sequences can be combined to save keystrokes. Combining sequences involves adding the parameter value and terminator of one or more sequences to another escape sequence. Structured sequences can be combined only if their prefixes are identical. When a parameter/ terminator of one sequence is added to another sequence, all of the terminators except the last should be lower case. For example, to set the left and right margins using two separate escape sequences, the following two sequences would be sent:

Set left margin at position 10 ESC&a10L Set right margin at position 99 ESC&a99M Using one combined escape sequence, the following would be sent to the

printer: ESC&a10l99M

Chapter 2 Configuring the PCL-II Emulation with Control Codes

Table 3 lists the escape sequences you can use with the printer. Note that the

brackets [ ] used in these escape sequences are for clarification purposes only (the brackets are not actually part of the commands).

Table 3. Line Printer Escape Sequences

Escape Sequence Explanation Page No.

PCL LEVEL I

ESCE Software reset 18 ESCY Display mode on 26 ESCZ Display mode off 26 ESCz Self test 26 ESC*rA Raster graphics start 41 ESC*b[#]W[data] Raster graphics data 41 ESC*rB Raster graphics end 41 ESC&d[DEFGLMNOTUVW\}^] Underline mode on 42 ESC&d[@CHIJKPQRSWXZ[] Underline mode off 42 ESC&11L Perf skip mode on 38 ESC&10L Perf skip mode off 38 ESC&k[0,2]S 10 and 16.67 cpi 26

PCL LEVEL II

ESC[(,)] [#ID] Primary/Secondary font symbol set 19

Cpi

ESC[(,)]s[ ESC&1[6,8]D 6/8 lpi 26 ESC&1[1-128]P Page length in lines 37 ESC&1[1-128]F Text length in lines 38 ESC&a[ ESC&a[

]H Primary/Secondary font cpi 22

print position print position

]L Left margin set 39

]M Right margin set 39 ESC&p[#]X Transparent mode 39 ESC&a[#]R Move to absolute row position 40 ESC&a[#]C Move to absolute column position 40 ESC&a[+#]R Move to relative row position 40 ESC&a[+/-#]C Move to relative column position 40

Escape Sequences

Table 3. Line Printer Escape Sequences (continued)

Escape Sequence Explanation Page No.

PCL LEVEL III

ESC[(,)]s[0,1]S Italics for primary/secondary font 22 ESC[(,)]s[0,1,-1]Q Density for primary/secondary font 22 ESC&k4S 12 cpi selection 26 ESC*t[70,140]R Raster graphics vertical and horizontal dpi

selection ESC*r[60,70,120,140]L Raster graphics horizontal dpi selection 41 ESC*r[72,144]V Raster graphics vertical dpi selection 41 ESC&10V Move to TOF of physical page, VFC channel 0. 27 ESC&1[1-16] Select VFC channel 29

#bytes

]W[

data

ESC&1[ ESC*z[#]H Bar code height 43 ESC*z[#]Q Bar code PDF position 43 ESC*z[#]V Bar code type selection 43 ESC*z[ ESC*b[#]Y Move # raster lines 41 ESC&k8S Double size print mode on 26

<bar data

] Program VFC 29

>]Z Bar code data 43

Chapter 2 Configuring the PCL-II Emulation with Control Codes

Programmable Reset

The programmable reset escape sequence (ESCE) causes the printer to eject paper to the top-of-form (position 0,0) if not already at top-of-form. This command resets all current printer configuration values to the following states. The printer remains on-line after a programmable reset. When the printer is reset, it is set to a known state as follows:

• Primary and secondary character sets (fonts) as configured from the

control panel.

• Vertical line spacing (6/8 LPI) as configured from the control panel.

• Paper moves to the next Top of Form position (if not currently at Top of

Form).

• Data buffer is printed and then the buffer is cleared.

• Standard VFC channel assignments selected as defined by physical page

length.

• Margins set at maximum limits and/or Left margin set at first column (0).

• Physical page length remains as configured from the control panel.

• Logical page length = physical page length

• Text length = logical page length minus one inch

• All character font attributes (symbol set, pitch, style, and density) default

to the character font configured from the control panel.

• Display functions off and Underline enhance disabled.

• Perforation skip mode as configured from the control panel.

• Enable/Disable Label Card as configured from control panel.

• Printronix linefeed emulation as configured from control panel.

• Raster graphics horizontal resolution as configured from the control

panel. Vertical resolution set to 72 dots per inch.

Character Font Selection

Character Font Se lection

The printer can print several different character sets (fonts). By performing a printer self-test, you can see which fonts are installed in your printer. You may specify any of these fonts from an application. On the self-test printout, each available character font is printed along with a parameter number to the left of the printed font.

There are two ways to select a font from those available:

• By entering the parameter number via the control panel (function 1 =

primary character set; function 2 = secondary character set)

• By specifying the attributes of the desired fonts using escape sequences.

The list below contains the font attributes, listed in order of descending priority:

• Symbol Set (ASCII, Roman-8, Line Draw, etc.)

• Pitch (10,12,13.3,15,16.67, 20)

• Style (Upright/Italic)

• Density (High-Speed, Near Letter Quality)

The attributes are specified for both primary and secondary fonts so that you may switch between the primary and secondary fonts using the Shift Out (SO) and Shift In (SI) control codes. Notice that the only difference between the primary and secondary font escape sequences is the direction of the

parentheses. The left parenthesis “(“ is used for primary fonts and the right parenthesis “)” for secondary. Upon receiving these font attribute commands, the printer selects the best fitting font from those available.

It is not necessary to specify all four font attributes when selecting a font. If any of the attributes are not specified, the printer defaults to those attributes last specified (or, if none have been specified, from the control panel default font). For example, if you wish to select a font without selecting a print pitch, the print pitch last specified will be in effect. If you had not previously specified a print pitch, the printer will use the print pitch of the default font that was last specified from the control panel (provided that the particular symbol set selected is available in the current pitch).

The escape sequences used for specifying the character font attributes are explained in the following paragraphs.

Chapter 2 Configuring the PCL-II Emulation with Control Codes

Symbol Set Selection

The printer allows you to select a symbol set. A symbol set is a set of characters that are mapped to certain locations in the printer’s memory. Symbol sets differ from one another in the characters contained in the set and in their locations within memory. The default symbol set is that of the default font specified from the control panel.

The following escape sequences are used to specify the primary and secondary symbol sets:

ESC(ID Select symbol set for primary character font ESC)ID Select symbol set for secondary character font

Table 4 lists the ID’s needed to select each symbol set. For example, to select

the Roman-8 symbol set for the primary font, you would send the ESC(8U escape sequence. To select OCR-B for the secondary font, you would send ESC)1O to the printer.

An ASCII symbol set table is provided in Appendix A. NOTE: Any number of fonts may be printed on each line, but to do this, each

font must be the same pitch and typeface. That is, only one print pitch, or typeface is allowed per line.

Table 4. Symbol Set Selection

Symbol Set

Name

Roman-8* 8U 8-Bit No 1 Turkish-8 8T 8-Bit No 1 Arab-8 8V 8-Bit No 1 Cyrillic-8 8R 8-Bit No 1 ASCII 0U 7-Bit No 0 Math Symbol 0A or 0M 7-Bit No 0 Line Draw Set 0B or 0L 7-Bit No 0 ISO Den/Nor 0D 7-Bit No 0 Roman Ext Char 0E 7-Bit No 0 ISO UK 1E 7-B it No 0 ISO France 0F 7-Bit No 0 ISO German 0G 7-Bit No 0 Hebrew 0H 8-Bit No 1 Japan ASCII 0K 7-Bit No 0

ID Classification

Printable in hex

80-9F Range

Mode

Katakana 1K 8-Bit No 1 Block Char 1L 7-Bit No 0

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