Star Micronics LaserPrinter 4III Applications Manual

APPLICA TIONS MANUAL

80821885

Trademark Acknowledgements

LaserPrinter 4111:Star Micronics Co,, Ltd. PageMaker: AldusCorporation Applesoft: Apple Computer Inc. Bitstream: Bitstream Inc. Canon:Canon Inc. HP, LaserJet:Hewlett-Packard Company LaserControl:Insight Development Inc. IBM PC: InternationalBusiness MachinesCorp. Century Schoolbook: Linotype Corporation Lotus 1-2-3:Lotus DevelopmentCorporation

MS-DOS, Microsoft BASIC, Windows, Word: MicrosoftCorporation MultiMate: Multimate International WordPerfect:WordPerfect Corporation Ventura Publisher: XeroxCorporation

NOTICE

STAR’s express permission is forbidden,

● The contents of this manualare subject to cbange without notice

● Alleffortshavebeenmadetoensure theaccuracyofthecontentsofthis manualatthetimeofpress.

However,sbouldanyerrorsbedetected, STAR would greatly appreciate being informed of them.

. The above notwithstanding, STAR can assume no responsibility for any errors inthis manual

PREFACE

About this manual

This StarLu.~erPrinter4111Application.~Manual gives you the information

you need to program the Star Micronics LaserPrinter 4111.

Why would you read this book? Most people using a laser printer just run softwarepackageswithbuilt-inprinter drivers, which look after everything theircomputers sendtheir printers.Butmany of us— smallbusiness people and home computer users, not to mention the wizards who write those softwarepackages—wanttobenefitfromall thenew featuresoffered byour printers.

Doyouwantcompletecontroloverthecharacters andimagesyouprint?This manual provides the software help you need to get the most from your

LaserPrinter 4111. Though this Applications Manual is really intended for intermediate to

advanced computer users, we’ve tried to accommodate relative novicestoo.

The information is organized so you can walk through the general theory

underlying printer programming before dancing into specific details. It makessense,therefore, toread thefirstthreechaptersbeforejumping intothe middle.

There’s agoodreason toreadeach chapter from itsstarttoo. People learning how to use a new printer often find the terminology a barrier. So instead of burying what may be newjargon in a Glossary at the back, we define each newterm thefirst timeitappears.Thewhole firstpart ofthechapteron fonts, forexample, defines different aspects of afhzt (acollection ofcharacters of the same size and style).

What’sin this manual?

●

In “Getting to Know Your Star LaserPrinter 4111”we provide a listof the features that make this a splendid printer, to help you choose which features you want to exploit. There’s a bit on how laser printers work, inside and out. The chapter then explains software in general terms, including how to write control and Escape commands to make those features work.

‘&ControllingYour Printer” examines the parameters you give the Star LaserPrinter 4111to direct precisely how you want it to behave. These let you control theprinter, manage page formats, and specify what you want printed.

Formostofus,the“Fonts”chapterwillbeuseful:howto usethefontsbuilt intotheLaserPrinter 4111,plus thosethatcome on cartridges or computer disks.

You may look at chapters 4 and 5, which cover Star LaserPrinter 4111 commands. Your LaserPrinter 4111emufates (imitates) Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 111by accepting the same commands they do.

If you want to write or modify a program that uses the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III, chapters 4 and 5 show how your Star LaserPrinter 4111can

emulate to accordingly. The chapter on “Printer Control Language” is longer and more detailed

than the other. That’s because you are more likely to use laser printer comtiands than commands for vector graphics.

Thefinal“Technical Supplement”containingthecommand and character reference tables will m-obablvget thumbed the most.

●

✌

JG-

Conventions

Incidentally,oneofthoseTechnical Supplement tables suggestsa couple of typographic conventions we’ll use. Base ten (decimal) numbers will generallybeusedhere; ifwehavetousebasesixteennumbers(hexadecinzczi)we’11 expressly say so.

And second, the lowercase L is practically identical to the number one (1versus 1).Because lowercase L is used in many command descriptions, we’11use the character ~ to avoid confusion.

The Star LaserPrinter 4/// Operations Manual

ThismanualisthecompaniontotheStarLuserPrinter41110peration.rManual that came with your printer. A laser printer is a fairly complex tool that

requirescare and delicate handling. Soto usethisApplications Manual best, make sure you understand that OperationsManual first.

Your OperationsMattualholdsessential informationabouttheLaserPrinter

4111.such as how to:

●

unpack and set up your laser printer, connect the Star LaserPrinter 4111to your computer’s serial or parallel

port. link the LaserPrinter 4111into a network of several computers, configuretheLaserPrinter41Hto yourneeds (withvariablessuchaspaper

size and speed of data transfer), load paper and the toner cartridge, operate the panel switches and display, run the LaserPrinter 4111self-test, look after your printer to keep it in peak condition.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Getting to know Your Star LaserPrinter 4111............................................. 1

1.1Star LaserPrinter 4111Hardware ................................................. 1

1,2Star Laserprinter 4111software ...........................................,,.....5

2. Controlling Your Printer

............................................................................

2.I Printer Parameters ...........

....................................................... .

2.2 Controlling the Printer .............................................................. 16

2.3 Controlling the Page .................................................................20

2.4 Controlling the Printing ............................................................25

2.5 The Star LaserPrinter 4111Superset ..........................................26

3. Fonts .............................................................................................................27

3.1 Font Terminology .....................................................................27

3.2 How the Star Laserprinter 4111Stores Fonts ............................30

3.3 Symbol Sets ..............................................................................33

3.4 Managing Fonts........................................................................34

4. Printer Control Language ..........................................................................4l

4.1 Printer Control Language .........................................................41

4,2 Controlling [he printer ..................................................,...........43

4.3 Page Orientation .......................................................................46

4.4 Moving the Print Position ........................................................51

4,5 Controlling Fonts......................................................................61

4.6 Using Your Own Fonts ............................................................79

4.7 Raster Graphics ........................................................................84

4.8 Pattern Graphics .......................................................................87

4.9 Macros ......................................................................................93

5. Vector Graphics .....................................................................................,....97

5.1 GL/2 Commands and Syntax ...................................................97

5,2 controlling the prin[er ......................................... ....................99

5.3 Configuration and Status ........................................................ 102

5,4 Vector Group........................................ ................................. 106

5.5 Polygon Group ....................................................................... 110

5.6 Line and Fill Attribute Group................................................. 113

5.7 Character Group ..................................................................... I19

5.8 Escape Sequences in GL/2 Mode ........................................... 126

6. Technical Supplement ............................................................................... 129

6.1 CommandSummary............................................................... 129

6.2 Symbol sets ............................................................................ 134

Index .............................................................................................. .. ....... .... 165

Gettingb KnoW’Yow ‘” “

StarLaserPrinte~

4111

This chapter introduces both the hardware and software aspects of the Star LaserPrinter 4111’spersonality, from fonts and print engine to ASCII and Escape sequences.

1.1 STAR LASERPRINTER 4111HARDWARE

1.1.1 Versatility

Your Star Micronics Star LaserPrinter 4111 works with practically all

commercial softwareprogramsandcomputers.With featuresthatgo beyond

Star’s easy, affordable 9-pin and fast, quality-printing 24-pin dot matrix

printers,the StarLaserPrinteristhe logicalnext stepinthe seriesoffineStar

Micronics printers.

Your Star LaserPrinter 4111produces pagesthat lookclose totypesetquality,

with up to 90,000 dots per square inch— no more NLQ (near letter quality) compromises. The Star LaserPrinter 4111produces four of those pages a minute. These numbers translate to about five times more resolution and

about three times more speed than the average dot-matrix printer.

Star’snew printer isremarkably versatile. Youcan printcomplicated forms

(widthwiseifyouwant)...detailedgraphs...yourowncustomized typestyles

...digitizedphotographs ...

otherlanguages(includingArabic andJapanese).

You can even print your letterhead and logo as you print your letter, and reprint them directly onto a business envelope. You don’t even need to remove thepapertraytoprinttheenvelope:just slideit into themanual feed

slot.

The Star LaserPrinter 4111is ideal for desktop publishing. The pages it produces make perfect photocopy orinstant-printmasters. And allthemain desktoppublishingsystems,includingAldusCorporation’sPageMaker and Xerox Ventura Publisher, work splendidly with the Star LaserPrinter 4111. With “page makeup” programs likethese you will be able — maybe for the first time — to deliver communications with the impact of top-notch graphics.

1.1.2Font options

You can print with an amazingly wide variety of type fonts and sizes. The Star LaserPrinter 4111comes with two built-in bit-mapped fonts and two built-in scalable fonts, which can be printed from 3 points to 999.75 points in size (a point is about 1/72of an inch). These fonts are:

CG Times Font

Univers Font

Courier Font

Li ne Printer Font

Besides these, you may be able to use optional cartridges and disks to give your Star LaserPrinter 4111a variety of extra fonts, such as these:

Prestige fonts Letter Gothic fonts H Gothic fonts

Roman fonts Presentation fonts Optical Character Reader fonts Line drawing Bar codes

You can load your Star LaserPrinter 4111’smemory with fonts stored on computer disks. Literally hundreds of fonts are marketed by font-supply companies. Some fontsareevenobtainablefrom computer “user groups” or “electronicbulletinboards”.Fontsyougetthiswayare inthepublicdomain, which means you don’t need to pay a licence fee to use them.

Ask your Star LaserPrinter 4111dealer about resources like these. Desktop publishing with laser printers is fast-changing territory, and some Star Micronics staff people have found electronic bulletin boards and computer usergroups quitehelpfulinkeeping up withthechanging pace. If you invest a littletime this way it may repay you well.

.1.1.3How your laser printer communicates

Your computercommunicates with the Star LaserPrinter 4111througheither aparallel cable or one of two kinds of serial cable. The printer’s inter-ace, thelinkorboundaryitshareswithyourcomputer,defines whethertheprinter willacceptcharactersandcommands fromyourcomputer onebyteoronebit at a time.

A bit is the smallest unit of computer or printer memory. It has either a low or high electric charge, which we represent with the digits Oand 1.Usually eight adjacent bits are grouped to form a byte. Since a byte normally represents one character, this stringof bits— 01000001— might represent the letter A.

The serial interface accepts just one bit at a time from your computer. A parallel interfacecan handle a wholebyteat once, bymovingdata bitssideby-sidealong separate wires. You choosewhich interface method you want to use by selecting it on the operator panel, as explained in your Sfar

LaserPrinter 4111Operations Manual.

1.1.4 The Star LaserPrinter 4111is a computer

The Star LaserPrinter 4111firstmaps the characters to be printed intoitsown random access memory (RAM). That is, the printer builds.a “picture” in its memory corresponding to thepage you want to print. When that’s done the printer can reproduce thepage onto paper on itsown, lettingyourcomputer get on with other work.

Your Star LaserPrinter 4111comes with one megabyte of RAM — the equivalent of about one million characters. A Star LaserPrinter 4111option lets you add a second megabyte of RAM if, say, you need to map full-page graphics or store more fonts. Accompanying all that RAM is another 2 megabytes of read only memory (ROM), containing a library of internal fonts and the programs that let the Star LaserPrinter 4111emulate other printers.

An Intel 80960SA computer chip controlsboththe memory andtheprinting mechanism inthe printer, called the printengine.The printer stores a whole page in RAM before printing it. (If a page is so dense that it overflows memory—amost unlikelyevent—the Star LaserPrinter4HI printsthepage on two sheets.)

1.1.5 The Print engine

It’stheprintenginethatformsthe actualcharacters andgraphics.The engine directs itslaser, a pinpoint streamoflightpulses,throughmirrors and lenses onto the surface of a positively-charged rotating drum.

r“i””r

Lens Laserbeam

Scanningmirror

ctor laserdiode

~Photosensitive drum

Asthe laser scans, it“draws” the page-map storedinyourprinter’smemory.

Wherever a light pulse strikes, that tiny part of the drum drops to a neutral electricalcharge.Thatspotthen attractsfinetonerpowder asthedrum rotates

past the powder compartment.

As the drum rotates further itmeets the paper. The paper itself isnegatively

charged by passingbya finecoronawire.Sinceoppositechargesattract, the

negative paper clings to the positive drum. Then heat and pressure from a

rollermeltor,fusethe dots oftonerontothe paper, precisely reproducingthe

image.

Finally thepaper slides intotheoutputbin.The paper usuallycomesout face

dowmso it stacks in the correct sequence.

1.2 STAR LASERPRINTER 4111SOFTWARE

1.2.1 Binary and hexadecimal arithmetic

Ifyoualreadyknowwhathexadecimal numbersare, youcan skipthissection

and go ahead to read about ASCII.

The decimal number system with which we’re all familiar is a positional counting system. There’s the “ones” position, the “tens” position, the “hundreds”positionandsoon. Each higherposition isworthtentimesmore than the position to therightof it, sincethe decimal system uses the base of ten. Moreover, we need ten symbols to show the actual values that may be in each position.

The binary system ispositionaltoo. There’s the “ones”position,the “twos” position,the“fours”position,the “eights”positionand so on. Inbinaryeach positionisworthonlytwice thatofthepositionto itsright.Andweonlyneed two symbols—O (zero)and 1(one)—to show thevaluesthatmaybe in any position. So in binary we get numbers that look like 1010or 10001100.

The hexadecimal system is made of base-sixteen numbers. Hexadecimal is positionalliketheothercountingsystems. Andeach higherposition isworth sixteen times as much as the position to its right.

We need sixteen different symbols to show all the possible values one hexadecimaldigitcouldhave.We canuseourdecimal system’sten symbols, butwe’vehadtoborrowafew more fromouralphabetto get allthe symbols we need. In hexadecimal, therefore, you can have a number that looks like 2C7C, or even FACE.

Here’show the decimal, binary and hexadecimal number systemscompare:

Decimal Binary

o 0000

0001

0010

3 0011

4 O1oo 5

0101

6 0110

7 01I1

Hexadecimal

2 3 4 5 6 7

Decimal 8

10 11

12 13 14 15

Binary

1000 100I 1010 lo]I I100” IIol I110 1111

Hexadecimal x 9

A B c D E F

The importantthingto realize is that there’s more than one way to showthe samenumeric value.Computerprogrammers, for example,occasionallyuse the hexadecimal system because it’s so compact. (Programmers often just say “hex”.) This binary number:

101001011111110100110111111011010010110100001001

looksquiteabittidierwhen itiswritten asA5 FD 37ED 2D09, whichmeans the same thing.

1.2.2 TheASCII table

Where does the Star LaserPrinter 4111get the characters and instructions it needstoprintinthefirstplace? Itgetsthemfromyourcomputer, which sends a stream of text and commands to your printer.

The program in your computer that controls everything sent to the printer (called the printer driver) will usually be included with your computer programs, such asyourword processor. Butthecommands couldalsocome from aprogram you’ve written, perhaps inBASZC,a programming language that uses common English words.

Internally, computers and printers use only the binary number system to representbothcommands andallthealphabetic,numericandotherkeyboard symbols. Nearly all of those machines use the same scheme to code those symbols,theAmerican StandardsCodeforInformationInterchange(ASCII).

An example:inour familiardecimalsystem,binary01001010adds uptothe number 74. Depending on which program your printer is using, it can interpret that binary string 01001010 as either the number 74 or the symbol

J. The printer stores the symbol./ at position 74 in a table in its memory.

That eight-bit binary string,or byte.,can be broken intotwo halves. The left or high-order part containing 0100 is called the zone portion; the right part holdingthe 1010iscalled thedigits portion.And in thehexadecimal number system, the zone and digit parts of that byte are represented as 4 and A respectively (look them up in the list above).

Sothe laserprinterunderstandsthe symbolJas 01001010,whichwecanalso represent as the decimal number 74 or the hexadecimal number 4A. We’ve printed this byte vertically and horizontally below, showing how it adds up to decimal 74 and hex 4A.

o x 27

1x 26

0x 25 0x 24

1x 23

0x 22

1x 2’

ox 2°

zone

0100

—

— —

—

digits

1010

0 0

Decimal

Binary Hexadecimal

The ASCII table in the Technical Supplement shows all these equivalent representations for the symbols your laser printer understands. The table organizes them in ascending order. In fact, ASCII isorganized in a way that actually makes sense.

Flip back there for a quick look right now. See how you can slice the table into clumps of 16 or 32, based on what’s in the zone portion under the hexadecimal column? These clumps make subgroups of similar symbols:

● hex 00 to 1F are the command symbols called control codes,

. hex 20 to 40 are the common keyboard symbols and numerals, . hex 41 to 60 are capital letters and the less common keyboard

symbols,

. hex 61 to 7F are lowercase letters and a few final symbols.

That takes care of the first 128 ASCII symbols. However, nearly every computer and printer manufacturer treats the second half of the table differently.Hewlett-Packard, forexample,puts avariety ofaccented foreign languagecharacters into positions 128-255(oftenreferred toas/zighASCZl). Epson gives you a choice of either italics characters or IBM character graphics.

1.2.3 Control codes

The ASCII table shows symbols like .Jor2 theway they actually printonthe laser printer. But ASCII includes more than just printable characters: none of the control code commands at the beginning of the table actually print. Instead,when yourcomputer sendsacontrolcode tothe laserprinteritmakes your printer do other things, such as sound its beeper.

Control codes mostly handle communications between your computer and theprinter atthe lowest level,atcablelevel.For example, acouple ofcontrol codes make sure theprinter lmjfer (your printer’s storagememory) doesn’t overflow. In this book we’ll indicate control codes enclosed by angle brackets to their abbreviations in the table: <FF> means the Form Feed controlcode, which advances the printer to the next page-just as the [PRINTI button does.

1.2.4 Escape sequences

Control code 27, <ESC> or Escape, is a particularly important one for

printers.To tellyourprinterallthethingsyou mightneed— settingmargins,

saying where to print,choosingaparticularfont, startinggraphics and soon — requires many more than just two or three dozen control codes. So the <ESC> control code has a special meaning: <ESC> means “the next character specifies a command, not something to be printed”.

Therefore if you send just the chara$ter:

to the printer it will print a J and that’s all. But if you send the <ESC> codejust before the cthen the printer willswitchoverto print selftest.Extending thecontrol codes this way gives you many more commands to control your printer. In fact, these “Escape sequences” make up most of the Star Laser Printer’s language.

In this book we’ll leave spaces between characters when we show escape sequences. You’ll find

<ESC>

(S OP IOh

a bit more readable than

12vos 3T

<ESC>

(sop IOh12vOS3T

But remember that you are not to send those spaces if you send commands to the printer.

To sum up, printer commands are of two types. A cw?trolcode is a singlecharacter command that tells your printer to do something, likemove down one line. An Escape sequence controls a printer operation too, but is more

than onecharacter long.Sincethey are commands, neither controlcodesnor

escape sequences are usually printable characters.

1.2.5 Printer drivers

Most software packages already include the printer commands they need. The programs that send commands to the printer so you don’t have to enter them yourself are called printer dri~’ers.

Many programs ask you to install or configure your printer, which usually means keying into a menu the particular setup information describing your Star LaserPrinter 4111.You enter such thingsashow you want to underline, alter line spacing, or move to a new print position.

Someprograms, such as WordPerjict and thesystemsfrom Lotus DevelopmentCorporation, letyou putprinter Escape sequencesbefore orrightinside

thedocument you wanttoprint.To turn on boldface,forexample, you might hold down special keys on your keyboard, often Iabelled CONTROL or ALT, asyoupressanotherkey.Oryoumightusea specialFunctionkey,such as F6.

In fact, to take real advantage of your Star LaserPrinter 4111’sspecial abilities, you might opt for a word processor that lets you specify font changes easily. WordPerfect and Microsoft Word are strong at this, but are by no means the only good font manipulators.

If you have trouble using a particular program with your Star LaserPrinter 4111,you’ll probably get answers most quickly by asking your software

supplier how the program interacts with your printer.

In thismanual we refer to programs, fontsand other productssoldby several companies. Pleaserealizethatmentioning theseproductsdoesnot mean Star Micronics endorses them in any way.

1.2.6Sending your own printer commands

Withoutaprinterdriver,sendingcontrolcodes andEscape sequencestoyour printer properly requires some knowledge of a programming language like BASIC or Pascal, or at least of how to put such codes into a program. With programming languages,the computerdoesn’tact onthecommands youput into a program until you tell it to run that program.

When you give a command to the printer from a computer program, you normally enter each part of the command as a separate character. This way you don’t affect anything else happening on the computer. You often send each code or character in the command by giving its position in the ASCII table, as a decimal or hex number.

1.2.7A BASIC example

Here’s an example you can type in right now, to clarify what we’re saying. It’s written in Microsoft BASIC for a computer that uses the MS-DOS operating system, so if you have a different computer or BASIC you may have to translate a bit.

The LPRINT commands all send data to the printer. Ifthe data is something youwantprintedyoujust putitinquotationmarks. Ifthedataisacontrol code you just say where it is in the ASCII table, giving its position as a regular decimal number.

BASIC usuallysendsacarriage return after every 80 characters, to keep the

print position moving when it hits the end of a line. Unasked-for carriage

returns can mess up your printing, however, so it’s a good habit to put in a WIDTH statement as shown. That lets us print over the whole page area.

The <BEL> control code— ASCII code7— is sent inBASIC as CHR$(7). The <ESC> code itselfisCHR$(27). And because we’re using thecharacter

z as part of an <ESC> command, we type CHR$(112) instead of

“z”.

So if you start BASIC and type these commands:

NEW

10 ‘ EXAMPLE

20 WIDTH “LPT1:’’,255 30 LPRINT CHR$(7) 40 LPRINT CHR$(27);CHR$(112) 50 END RUN

youmakethe printerfirst sounditsbell—most peoplecallitabeeper— and then print the self test.

Generally, when you send a control or Escape code it stays active until you

deactivate it.

Mostprogramming languages,andsomeversionsofBASIC,letyoutreat the printer as a file to which youcan send data. When you write a program with one of these languages you “open” the printer file, print into it, and then “close” the file when you’re done. This programming jargon soundsfunny

if you’re not used to it— but it works.

A few programming languages letyou send commands to theprintera third way.ApplesoftBASICisone. With it,youcan switchbetweenprinteroutput and screen output.

1.2.8Printer emulations

YourStarLaserPrinter4111respondstothesameescape sequencecommands that the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III printer uses.

Macros are singlecontrolcodesyoucan defineyourself, which do the work

ofawholelongseriesofprintercommands.Ifyouare aprogrammer youwill be happy to hear the Star LaserPrinter4111supportsupto99macrosatonce.

MEMO

You can control your Star LaserPrinter 4111in two ways, either through controlpanelparameters or through software commands. In this chapterwe will consider printer controls mostly from the perspective of the control panel.

2.1 PRINTER PARAMETERS

2.1.1 The control panel

The easiest way to control your Star LaserPrinter 4111is through its control panel, as explained in your Star LaserPrinter 4111OperationsManual.

When your printer is onfine (connected to and under the control of your computer), its control panel display shows you the printer’s status. For example, the READYlightblinks when the printer is warming up. The DATA light comes on whenever the printer is holding data it hasn’t printed yet.

When you press the [ON LINE] button, the printer changes from normal to offline mode and cannot accept data from yourcomputer. When the printer is offline you can usethe other panel buttons.For instance, if you press the

[TEST/>] button for two seconds and release itjust after STATUS SHEET is

displayedwhen thelaserprinter isoffline,itfinishesprintingthecurrentpage and then feeds in and prints a status sheet.

Some buttons on the panel let you perform two functions. Holding one of

those buttons down, rather than quickly pressing it, selects a different operation. For example, holding down the [TEST/>] button for over five

seconds makes the Star LaserPrinter 4111print its font list.

2.1.2 Parameter settings

From the panel you can also change the parameters that define how your

printer works. Parameter just means

“variable”. If you’re familiar with earlier kinds of printers, you’ll understand that laser printer parameters controlpretty much thesamethingsDZPswitches do.(A DIP switchor’’dual

in-linepackage switch”isa setofsmallswitchesthat controlvarious printer functions.)

The printer stores these parameters aseasy-to-useprogram menu items that

you can select from the control panel. These parameters specify:

●

number of copies (how many sheets of each page to be printed) character (what character font to print) page size (what size the printer will use)

layout (how pages will be formatted)

paper feed (what paper the printer will use)

input buffer (what size the printer can store the input buffer) interface (how the printer communicates with your computer)

A dejbult is the setting the Star LaserPrinter 4111will use if none is specificallyselectedbyaprogram. When you firstturnon or later reset your printer these default settings will take effect.

Your main usefor the control panel will likely be to set the default settings you want for these parameters. However, you will probably find the panel convenient too when you want to switch between manual and automatic paper feed.

2.1.3 Four versions of parameters

The Star LaserPrinter4111actually storesfourversionsoftheseparameters:

●

its “ultimate default” factory settings, the user default settings in effect when you first turn on the printer, your initialsettingsfor one particular session, and the current settings that the printer is using now.

These are in priority order. The current settings always override the initial sessionsettings,which inturnoverridetheuserdefaultsettings,which inturn override the factory settings.

Factory settings are programmed into the Star LaserPrinter 4111when it is

builtatthe factory. Your printerkeepsthefactory settingsfor itsparameters in ROM; they never change. You can copy them into the current settings or any other settingsasneeded. But theonly way you can return to the factory

defaults is from the control panel; no commands do this.

A few factory default settings are as follows:

Item

Fuetory deftiult settincq

Emulation HP LaserJet III Feeder

Multi-purpose tray Number of Copies 1 Orientation

Portrait Font 10-pitch 12-pointCourier (internal) Lines/inch

6 lines per inch

The user default setti}?gsare the normal default settings. The printer keeps themeven when you turn off the power. There are two settings:Mode 1and Mode2. The Mode 1isthe normaldefault setonpower-up or hard reset. You

can select either Mode 1or Mode 2 by using [PROGRAM] button in normal offline mode. When you turn on the printer, these user default settingsget copied intothe

initial and current parameter settings.

You probably will not often change the Star LaserPrinter 4111’sinitial set- tings(sometimes called “session settings”). You’11likely only change them when youwantto useadifferent printeremulationthannormal. These initial settings stay the same as the user default settings until you change them.

On the other hand, your software will probably change the (urrent settings many times within the same document, with every change of font or print style.

2.1.4 How to change parameters

With the printer offline, ifyoupressthe [PROGRAM] button theprintergoes into “program” mode. You can then step through the laser printer’s four levels of program menu to configure your printer. That’s the process of changing certain printer settings so your computer and printer can communicate properly.

It’s actually pretty easy. Flipping through and setting parameters from the panel isdescribed in detailintheStarLaserPt”inter4111OperationsManual.

Basically, all you do is press the [<]or [>]buttons to scroll through the sequence of possible parameters and values, which is clearly shown on the panel display. You press [v] when you want to go down and scrollthrough alower menulevel.And youalsopress

[A]when youwanttosaveaparticular

menu item as the value for a current parameter setting.

The two last menu headings let you load one version of the parameters into another version. One moves the current parameter values into user default parameters. The final menu option goes the other way, letting you load the factory parameter settings as your current settings.

2.2 CONTROLLING THE PRINTER

Inthissectionyou’llmeettwoseparatecontrolsoverhowtheStarLaserPrinter 4111itself works. The INTERFACE parameter controls communications between the printer and your computer. You can set the INTERFACE parameters on the control panel.

2.2.1 The l/VTERFACEparameter

The INTERFACE parameter, the most basic of the Star LaserPrinter 4111’s configuration settings, defines how your computer connects to the printer. You can set the INTERFACE to either Serial or Parallel. In most singlecomputerenvironmentsyou’lloptforthe fasterParallelinterface; inamultiuser network you may be better off with Serial.

The particularprinterinterface settingsdon’tmatterasmuch asmaking sure they match those on your computer. If you use an MS-DOS computer, you can”set your computer’s parameters with the MODE command. See your MS-DOS manual.

Most MS-DOS and AT-compatible computers support up to three parallel and two serial ports, which come on expansion boards you plug into your computer.Whenyouinstallsuch boardsyoumustsetswitchestoindicatethe numberandaddresses ofthese ports. Ifyou specifythe wrong addresses,you won’t be able to print.

Serial interface: rate

If you ask forthe Serial interface you’llhaveto tell your printer more about how the data will be coming in— in particular itsrate and unitsize and the meanings of any special bits.

The Rate parameter specifies how fast data will be arriving, measured in baud (named aftertheFrench communications engineer Jean Baudot). Pick any of the following data transfer rates:

300 baud 600 baud

1200 baud

2400 baud

4800 baud

9600 baud (the default)

19200 baud

38400 baud.

Roughly,onecharacterasecond worksoutto 11baud. Ifyou’renotsurehow fast your computer will transmit, the general rule is to experiment. Try sending a page to print at the highest speed, and work your way down until the printer’s output looks OK.

Serial interface: special bits

In Serial mode you’ll also have to specify if your computer sendsdata bits in groups of seven (most computers send eight, the default for a byte).

Sometimes an extra bit gets appended to make the sum of all bits in each character always odd or even; that’s calledparity. A parity bitcan help spot transmission errors. If yourcomputer sendsthat extra parity bit, you’ll have tosay whetheritproducesanevenorodd numberof“on”bitsinthecharacter.

You’ll also have to indicateifyourcomputer sends two stop bits to indicate

the end of a byte, instead of one, the default. These serial interface settings

are described in more detail in your Star LaserPrinter 4111Operations

Manual.

Serial interface:protocol

Finally,inSerialmodeyourcomputer willuseone oftwoprotocolsto ensure dataissentproperly.Protocol(sometimesalsocalled “handshaking”)means “who says what when”, and is the way your printer tells your computer it’s ready to receive data. Your computer and printer communicate by sending protocol control codes (they’re at the front of the ASCII table).

Someprogrammers callthe XON and XOFFcontrol codes “kisson and kiss off’; otherscallthesameprotocol DC1and DC3 (fordevicecontrol). Either way, these codes let your printerrun the show, telling the computer when to startand stop sendingdata.Yourprinter askstohavedata held back when its memory is nearly full or when it senses an ERROR condition.

DTR (Data Terminal Ready) protocol does the same thing slightly differently. The printer sends a continuous high-voltage signal over the cable as long as it can accept data, but drops the voltage to say “whoa” to the computer.

Look in your computer’s operations manual, in the section dealing with communications protocols, to see which is best for your system. You can sticktothe printer’sdefaults ifyour computerdoesnotusetheDTR,butdoes use XON/XOFF.

2.2.2 Checking your connections

Your computer andprintermay have troublecommunicatingwhen you first introducethemto each other. The quick way to find out if your settings and printer cable are working isto send your printer a printout from your screen (CTRL-P with MS-DOS).

When that done you will also have to presstheprint button on the printer, which makes the printer advance to a new sheet. No laser printer printsand

ejects a page untilit’stold to feed aform,or untilithas received all the lines the page can hold.

If your Star LaserPrinter 4111doesn’t print what’s on the computer screen, recheck your connections and interface settings. With an applications program likeLotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Word, you use a printer setuproutine to match your computer with your printer’s operating characteristics. So double-check your software settings;your computer’s output, for example, might not be going to the proper port.

2.2.3 Hints: The hex dump

To make your Star LaserPrinter 4111print in hexadecimal rather than the usual ASCII symbols, press the control panel buttons that put the printer offline and in PROGRAM mode. Move to the EMULATION parameter’s HEX DUMP setting and select it.

Some control or Escape codes can be problems on a few computers; those computers change certain codes when sending them to the printer. If you think you have this problem you need to see exactly what your printer is receiving. We recommend you run a short program that loops through and prints the ASCII table. Print in hexadecimal rather than the usual ASCII symbols.

If you spot a problem code you can try to bypass the problem, either by sending each code directly to the printer, or by changing your system’s printer driver. Such computer-specific solutions, though, are beyond the scope of this manual. We suggest that if necessary you consult another programmer more familiar with your computer.

Actually, if you are debugging any program you may find this hex-dump mode helpful. It can be a great trouble-shooter.

2.3 CONTROLLING

In this section we look at two controls you have over how the Star LaserPrinter 4111handles and formats its pages: You can set values for the PAPER FEED and LAYOUT parameters onthecontrol panel. At theendof this section we’ll also preview different ways to move the print position.

2.3.1 The PAPERFEED parameter

The PAPER FEED parameter lets you specify both what kind of paper you want and how the paper is fed.

One convenient thing about a laser printer is that itdoesn’t need continuous forms, sometimes called ~bnfbki paper. Other printers feed in a stack of forms— withpages alljoined byperforations— byhaving sprocketsengage and pullalongpinfeed holespunched alongeach sideofthepaper. After it’s printed you have to tear off the pinfeed-hole strips and then separate the pages,

With the Star LaserPrinter 4111you can print on a variety of ordinary cut sheet pages.

For the Feeder value of this PAPER FEED parameter, you first enter either multi-purpose tray, manual feed or cassette (option) to indicate where you wantpaper fed from. The multi-purposetray handles varioustypesand sizes ofpaper (Letter, Legal, A4, B5, Executive, OHP sheets,Labels,Envelopes). Manualfeedmeansyoufeed each sheetby handfromthemulti-purposetray.

The cassette tray automatically feeds single sheets, much like sheet feeders

on other types of printers.

ThedefaultpapersizeisA4, youcan specifyother sizestoo.A different-sizes

tray automatically selects that different paper size,

●

8.5 by 11 inch letter-size paper

8.5 by 14 inch legal-size paper B5 international (used in every country except North America) (182 by 257 mm)

the narrower “executive” size (7.25 by 10.5 inches)

Oneothernice thingyoucan doisprintdirectly onenvelopes.With thisPaper Size parameter you can specify envelopes in sizes, Monarch, COM-10, InternationalC5andDL.Thenjust work outwhereto put theaddress,setthe orientationto landscape (see below), and slideyour envelope intothemultipurpose tray!

2.3.2 Hints: Pape6 labels and transparencies

●

The best paper forthe Star LaserPrinter 4111has a smooth finish and is of 60 to 105g/mz(20 to 24 pound) weight. Any paper designed for photocopiersshoulddothetrick though;Xerox4024andCanon NPprint nicely. High quality cotton bond paper, which contains up to 25 percent cotton fibres, works passably well with even heavier weights.

Theabsolutelimitsare 16-poundpaper atthelightend and 35-poundstock at the heaviest. With heavy paper, open the tray so the pages will be delivered face up and won’t have to bend over the final rollers.

Be aware that any puckered or woven finish may not print as sharply as you’d like. Avoid shinycoated paper ormultipartforms. And don’t even think about putting in stapled or ripped pages.

If you frequently change paper weights, you will probably get skewing problems — lines thal print at an angle because of misfeeding. For best results, when your Star LaserPrinter 4111is first set up have the paper feeder“squared” forpaperofatleast60grams(20pounds). Lighterpaper, though cheaper, isn’t really,the way to economize.

Want to print on your own preprinted letterhead?Fine— so longas your logoisn’tthermographed.Thickcolored inkmay lookluxurious,butitcan also wind up stuckalloveryourprinter’sroller. Stay away from any inks that soften at relatively low temperatures; your printer fuses pages at

200”C.

This warning appliestocoloredpaper too, ifithas been tinted with a lowtemperature dye.

When printing startsfading becausethetoner islow,remove thecartridge

and gently rock itback and forth half adozen times. Don’t tip it up or the tonermay spillout.Redistributingthe tonerpowder this way can keep the cartridge going for another tray of paper.

. No question, working with single label sheets is more convenient than

with continuous labelstock.Laser printers are faster and produce betterlooking labels than other printers. But laser printers, which work by electrostatic photographyratherthanimpactpressure,putdifferentstresses on labelpaper. Each sheethas to bend overandthroughtheguide rollers; moreover, fusing toner to the paper involves heat. You can eliminate trouble by always feeding label sheets manually.

Both Avery’s “Lasergraphic” labels and Canon’s labels seem to work

fine. Your main concern is that the labels completely cover the backing

sheet so itshowsonly at the outside margins. That way individuallabels

can’t easily peel off. The safestapproach isto laser-printsharpmastercopiesonpaper andthen

photocopy those lists onto labels. This will avoid putting your printer’s adjustment for paper thickness out of adjustment.

. Ifyou.wanttoprinttransparenciesforyouroverhead projector,somefilms

will actually melt in your laser printer. Stick to 3M’s medium-weight transparency film (type 501 ) or to Hewlett-Packard’s #92285J.

2.3.3 The LAYOUTparameter

The layoutorformat orsetup ofapage refers tohowtextispositionedon the page. Layout includes page orientation, margins and the spacing of charactersacrossand linesdownthepage.Youcan controlthese withtheLAYOUT parameter.

You probably won’t use the LAYOUT parameter on the control panel’s program menu very much though. Most of the time you’ll either leave the Star LaserPrinter 4111with its default settings, or lookafter page formatting with commands you send from your computer.

Page orientation

A page’s orientation tells you inwhich direction the print goes on thepage. When youuseportraitorientationthelinesare printedas theyare inanormal business letter, across the width of the page. A portrait painting of a person is usually vertical — hence the name.

Landscape

Porlraii

When you use landsmpe orientation the words are printed “on their sides,” vertically up the length of the page. Text written with landscape orientation only lookscorrect when you turnthepagesoitslength runsside-to-side,just like the painting of a landscape.

Envelopes must be printed with landscape orientation. You also will use

landscape regularly to print charts or banners, and spreadsheets or reports

with so many columns they wouldn’t otherwise fit on the page.

All internal fonts, and almost allcartridge and downloaded fonts, are stored

in the Star LaserPrinter 4111with portrait orientation.

Margins, columns and lines

Youcan change margin settingsfor allfouredges ofa page.The leftandright side margins can have values from Oto 132,defining the margin columns between which words and images can be printed. And the top and bottom margins can be set at anywhere from Oto 112 lines.

Text

Length

Portrait

Top Margin

<T-n”/

‘ Bottom Margin

‘/

Landscape

Orientation

The meaning of a line(sometimes called a “row”) isdefined by the t’ertical motim?index (VMI). The printer moves the printposition down a line when

it gets a Line Feed code, usually when it bumps into the right margin.

You’ll probably letyourcomputer program set the linedepth. But from the

panelyoucan.setthe VMIvalue inincrementsfrom 1/48to255/48of aninch.

Auto’parameters

The print position refers to the point on the page where the next character will be printed. When the printer reaches the end of a line, the Auto Parameters settings tell it whether or not to automatically:

. move the print position down one line (Iinefeeci), . or keep text out of the side margin (auto wrap).

2.3.4 Moving the print position: a preview

Withdot-matrixprinter,youpick where toprinton thepageeither bymoving the printhead back and forth or by moving the paper itself. Laser printers don’t have printheads, but the principle remains the same: you have to say exactlywhereonthepageeach pictureand stringof textisto go,soeach page can be constructed in the printer’s memory.

Instead of talking about printheads we talk about moving the printposifion (some people call it moving the “cursor”,

using the computer-screen analogy). Horizontally, you can move the print position with backspace and carriage<return commands. Vertically,youcan move theprint positiondown thepageby printing so many lines per inch,or by sendingline-feedandhalf line-feedcommands. You canalsomovetotab settingsbothhorizontallyand vertically (handy for tables and blank forms, or making room for your

diagrams).

But those aren’t all. You can tellthe Star LaserPrinter 4111to move the print position vertically or horizontally in increments of:

1/10, 1/12or similar fractions of an inch (pitch settings), 1/48,or 1/120inch (line or column definitions),

1/300inch (dots), or 1/720inch (tenths of a point).

These increments reflect the history of twentieth century printing. Pitch, referring tothenumber of characters printed in each horizontalinch, derives from how typewriters space their characters. Lines and

columns were first

used by earlier computer printers (on which they are called horizontal and verticalmotion indexes). You already know about the StarLaserPrinter4111 beingabletoprint300dots totheinch.And theunitby whichtypesettershave

measured text for centuries is the point,

about l/72nd of an inch.

Onehintaboutmovingtheprintposition:youcanconfuse yourselfifyouuse more than one or two different units during the same session. So decide beforehand how accurately you need to move the print position (notforgetting any graphics you want to include).Then stick to the unit(s)you choose.

The commands that move the print position in all these ways are described

in chapter 4.

2.4 CONTROLLING THE PRINTING

The CHARACTER parameter defines font attributes and setup values (if any) for the Star LaserPrinter 4111.

A font attributes or characteristics determine what that font will look like

when it isprinted. Thenext chapter, “Fonts”, exploresthedetails of all font attributesinmore detail.Butlet’shave aquickoverviewnow, because you’ll meet these terms on the control panel program menu.

Font attributes: a preview

Orientation (portraitor landscape as described earlier) is usually thoughtof as one attribute of a font; it’s not really a page formatting issue. Besides

orientation, the fonts with which you print have these attributes:

Symbol seris sometimes called “character set” — which can be confusing, since some people say “character set” when they mean a font. Symbol sets are subgroups of a font’s symbols that are most appropriate for particular countries, such as the UK (f), France (a), Latin America (ii) or Japan (Y).

Spacing andpitch are linked. Characters can be spaced on the linepropor-

tionally,so a narrow letter suchasitakes lessroomthan a wide letter like W,

Or characters can be spacedallthesamewidth:twelve characters to the inch

is the monospaced spacing called 12 pitch.

Pointsi:e defines how bigcharacters willprint, such as 10or 12points high.

St]’ledefines whether characters print in upright or italic style.

Stroke weight defines how bold a typeface prints.

Finally.,t]p<face itself means the artistic design of a font. Your printer’s internaltypefacesinclude,CourierandLinePrinter.WiththeStarLaserPrinter 4111you can also use Roman, Prestige, H-Gothic, L-Gothic, Orator and hundreds more typefaces, which you load into the printer from cartridge or computer disk.

When you enable font .~[~tzippu)un?ete}-.~on the control panel, itmeans you start off with particular font attributes as defaults.

2.5 THE STAR LASERPRINTER 4111SUPERSET

Here’s an important fact: you can set nearly every one of the above parameters by sending your printer a corresponding Escape sequence command.Those Escapesequencecommandswilloverrideanysettingyoumake from the control panel.

The main thing to realize about most printer commands, though, is that you probably don’t need to use them. Nearly all popular software packages include printer drivers, which send commands to the printer so you don’t have to type them yourself. Some of those programs ask you to key in setup parameters about your printer. Other programs let you put printer commands before or inside the document you want to print.

But maybe thesoftware you use doesn‘thave printerdrivers for any printer yourStarLaserPrinter4111emulates: You stillmight nothavetowrite printer commands yourself.

Severalcompanies sellprograms thatlookafterlaser-printingcommands for

such software. Ask yourdealer aboutLaserControl, Printiorks ji)r Lasers, PCLPakandRAMResidentPrit?tmerge.There’snotmuchpointinreinventing the wheel.

Fonts

The fontsyou use determine what your pages will look like. In this chapter we’ll first clarify the meanings of words people use when they talk about fonts.

Next we’ll examine the three kinds of fonts (internal. cartridge and downloaded) that you can use on your Star LaserPrinter 4111.We’ll cover the particular sets of symbols you can choose for those fonts too. Finally, we’ll find out how to load the printer with your selection of fonts.

3.1 FONT TERMINOLOGY

3.1.1 Typefaces and fonts

First, a few definitions. A typeface is a family of characters with the same basic design. The artisticcharacter design you choose establishesthe “tone of voice” for all your documents.

Several variables can characterize typefaces, including weight (light, medium, bold), width (condensed or extended), and style (upright or italic). Courier,forexample, isatypeface family thatincludesthecharactersinboth

Courier mediurnitalic and Courier bold upright.

Let’sconsiderthesevariables.Bold print issometimescalled “emphasized” or“double-strike”.On earlier printersboldfaceisgenerated by printingeach character twice;dot-matrix machinesprint the second impressionjust a hair below or to the right of the first one.

With the Star LaserPrinter4111you can have different strokeweights intwo ways.You canhavetwodifferent fonts,storingandswitchingbetween abold and a medium version ofthe font. Or you can usejust one font and set bold on and off with Escape sequences. The latterway usesjust half as much font memory.

Narrow condensed faces used to be called “compressed”. They cram about

fivecharacters inthe spacewherethree usuallygo— idealforspreadsheets. An extended face, particularly on a dot-matrix printer, goes by several

names: “expanded

“,“enlarged”or“double-width” printing.No matter what it’scalled, extended print is wider than it is high, and can be fairly effective in page headings.

Italiccharacters (sometimescalled “oblique”) are slanted.Ordinary upright

characters are often called “roman”. Your StarLaserPrinter 4111comes with

abuilt-inupright Couriertypeface.Moreover,fromanyoftheStarLaserPrinter

4111’sbuilt-in typefaces you can select a subset of upright symbols called

Roman-8.

A,font is a complete set of characters in a particular size and typeface. In the world of laser printers, the three variables mentioned above — weight, width and style— are a few~ont attributes (sometimes called “font characteristics”). Let’s consider three more attributes: font height, spacing and pitch.

3.1.2 Font height

The baseline is the invisible line upon which characters of type sit. Since

thefirst letter blocksweremadeofleadalloy,thedistancefrom one baseline

to thenext iscalled leading(pronounced “ledding”).Type itselfismeasured from the top ofanuscender (the partextending up intheb ork, forexample) to the bottom of a descender (the down-stroke of they or q).

The measurements used to describefontsarepoints andpicas (derived from

the marks and letters in medieval church almanacs). There are 12points to

the pica, and almost exactly 6 picas (72 points) to the inch.

Laser printers for computers measure~ont height inpoints.Onlaser printers the “white space” above ascenders and below descenders depends on how

the line is defined, so the line corresponds to leading. This type you’re

reading has a font height of 12points, and is spaced a little less than 5 lines per inch.

The o has been kerned

The font height (24 points) is measured

closer to the f.

from ascender to descender.

size and type~ace.

Baseline

Ill

Proportional

Serif

spacing

L;ading is the baseline to baseline measurement.

3.1.3 Font spacing and pitch

You probably first heard the word pitch in connection with typewriters. Typewriters normally usemonospaced spacing:they giveeachcharacterthe same amount of space on the line.

Abouthalf thefontsavailable for laserprintersusemonospaced spacingtoo. Pitch is always expressed as so many characters per inch. Ten-pitch, for example, means a font with ten characters in each inch of the line.

Typesetters for centuries have used two special sizes of type for most text.

Elite characters are 10pointshighand print 12characters per inch. Andpica

characters are 12points high and pitchedat 10characters to the inch. You’ll often run across these monospaced font sizes in the laser printing world.

ideally each character ina word should nestle against itsneighbors sothey appear evenly spaced. But adjacent round characters are apt to look too far apart, while flat-sided characters may appear too close.

Proportional spacincqtakes into account the differences in widths among

letters(compare iiwith w. Proportionally spaced printingiseasier to read thantypewriter-style printing inwhich allcharacters, includingpunctuation,

have the same width.

Real typesetters equip certain characters with kerns, letterparts that extend

out to overlap adjoining letters. In this word TJ!PCJthe J is kerned closely

against the T. Kerning separates great type from good type.

3.2 HOW THE STAR LASERPRINTER 4111 STORES FONTS

3.2.1 Bit-mapped fonts

StarMicronicshasearned areputation forattractive,well-designed fonts on its printers, and this laser printer continues the tradition.

The StarLaserPrinter4111usesbit-mappedfonts. Each character ismade up of a pattern or “map” of dots, just like characters on a dot-matrix printer or on your computer screen. Resolution makes the difference: to make each character the StarLaserPrinter 4111uses ten or twenty timesasmany dots as a dot-matrix printer or computer screen does.

Every sizeofprint youwant,plusevery italicorboldfaceversion,hasitsown bit map and is normally considered a separate font. It takes a good deal of printer memory to hold all the fonts you might want at any given moment.

Star LaserPrinter 4111fonts can be grouped into three categories: internal, cartridge, and downloadable fonts.

3.2.2 Internal fonts

The Star LaserPrinter 4111has seven built-in interml fonts that reside permanently in its read-only memory (ROM). That’s why these are sometimes called “resident fonts”:

Courier

10pitch, Courier 10pitch, Courier 10pitch, Courier 12pitch, Courier 12 pitch,

2 point medium 2 point bold 2 point italic Opoint medium

Opoint bold Courier 12pitch, 10 point italic Line Printer 16.6pitch, 8.5 point medium

Courier is thefaceusedon the mostcommon electric typewriters. Courier is not printed with proportional spacing. The Line Printer font, designed originally for mainframe computers, is small and designed to pack a lot of characters into every inch of print (great for spreadsheets).

The StarLaserPrinter4111’sscalablefontshave thesamerelativedimensions and general appearance as the following LaserJet III fonts:

CG Times CG Times CG Times CG Times Univers Univers Univers Univers

regular bold

italic bold italic regular bold italic bold italic

With these most frequently used fonts in ROM, a page can be assembled muchfasterthan ifthe fontshad tobeloadedintothe printerfor each printing

job.

3.2.3 Cartridge and downloaded fonts

YourStarLaserPrinter4111can usetwoother kindsof fonts,along withthose built into the printer.

Cartridge fonts, like the internal ones, are permanently stored on ROM chips.The difference is that those ROMs are in removable cartridges. Your Star LaserPrinter 4111has a slot for one font cartridge.

A cartridge may hold anywhere from half a dozen to two dozen fonts, all differing from the internal fonts in size, style, stroke weight or symbol set. You’ll find that cartridge fonts open up awider range of typefaces too, such as Roman, Prestige, H-Gothic and L-Gothic. Generally, cartridge and internal font typefaces are suitable for both text and headlines.

The third kind of font is neither built into your Star LaserPrinter 4111nor

available just by slipping in a cartridge. You do~’nloucithis kind of font,

which means you use a computer program [o send characters from a computer disk to your printer’s memory. Any downloaded font (sometimes called a “soft” or “installed” font) that you put into the printer’s RAM disappears when you turn off the printer, so you have to download that font again next time you want it.

Downloadable fonts run the gamut from Egyptian hieroglyphics to those eye-catching decorative fonts known as display fonts.They also include the more exotic foreign-language characters, such as Arabic or Cyrillic, and symbol and mathematical fonts (sometimes with fractions).

How can you compare cartridge and downloadable fonts? When you use cartridge fonts you don’t have to take time to download them. They don‘t take any of your Star LaserPrinter 4111’s RAM memory either. But downloadable fonts offer many more choices. Downloadable fonts usually cost less too.

The printer always knows where its internal fonts are. For each emulation program, italsokeepstrack ofcartridgeand downloaded fonts inapart of its memory called the~ont table.

So with the Star LaserPrinter 4111you can have many fonts available at any one time — the internal fonts, the fontson any cassettes you’ve plugged in,

and any fonts you have downloaded. You can change fonts in mid-line to emphasizeawordortwo whenever youwant.Youcanmix internal,cartridge and downloaded fonts in the same document.

3.2.4 Hints: Where to get fonts

●

You can print any downloadable font that works on the HP LaserJet HI. Several other companies sell downloadable fonts which are compatible with your Star LaserPrinter 4111.The Bitstream Corporation in Boston is oneofthemore popular; Conographic is another. Xerox includesa setof fontswith its Venm}a Publisher desktop publishing software, which you can use with your printer.

The SoftCraft company now markets a Bitstream-developed product called “Fontware”. With Fontware you can generate bit-mapped fonts of

any size from a library of outline fonts. In outlinefonts each character’s profile isdefinedjust once and the printer generates any font height from that profile, which saves printer memory.

Don’t hesitate to ask your Star dealer where you can buy cartridge and downloadable fonts. If you really can’t find the one you need, you can

design and download yourown customized fonts.This is noeasyjob, but if you’re curious it’s described in chapter 4.

3.3 SYMBOL SETS

Let summarize briefly, to put the subject of symbol sets in context.

The attributes of a font determine what that font will look like when it is printed. We covered all but orientation at the start of this chapter, and orientation in the last chapter. A font’s attributes include:

●

orientation (portrait or landscape)

symbol set (which we’ll look at next)

spacing (monospaced or proportional) pitch (10 or 16.66characters per inch, for example) font height (measured in points) style (upright or italics) stroke weight (light, medium or bold) typeface (Line Printer, Courier and so on)

Though they are not font attributes, such printing features as subscripts, superscripts and underlining are treated along with fonts in the following chapters.

Incidentally, the best way to underline is to use the underline command, insteadofbackspacingand overprinting with the separate underline charac-

ter(–).Ifyoudothelatterwithproportionallyspacedtext,you’llusuallyfind the underlining istoo long for the text.

3.3.1 What are symbol sets?

Keyboards differ from country to country. The British need their f symbol, the French need their g and 5,the Spanish need their ~ and fietc. Scientists need particular mathematical signstoo.There easily could be four hundred or more possible symbols for any given font.

However, the number of symbols printers store for a font is limited to 256 slots,asinASCII. So some symbols,ortheorder ofsomesymbols,can differ in any font. Each unique selection and arrangement of symbolsisa symbol

set (sometimes called a “graphic set” or “character set”).

. The symbol at position 91 for example is an open bracket, [, in the usual

ASCII symbolset. Butthe same positionholds A (capital A with an umlaut)

in the German symbol set.

You probably won’t change symbol setsvery often, unlessyouneed special symbols for your trade or regularly write in a language other than English.

Your printer supports sets containing just symbols, such as the Greek

alphabet(j?),logicsymbols(s), arrows(~), theregisteredtrademark symbol

(09)and so on.

3.3.2 Default font attributes

When you power on your printer, the internal fonts start off with default attributes which you can change as needed. The default symbol sets is Roman-8.

Technically, you can use any of the Star LaserPrinter 4111’sresident fonts when you send commands. If you want a character that’s not in the font you’re using, don’t hesitate to grab it. Just send the Escape sequences that select your desired symbol set, print with it, then go back to your original font.

3.4 MANAGING FONTS

Youcan seewhichfonts arecurrentlyselectedonyour StarLaserPrinter 4111 by printing a status sheet in offline mode, as mentioned at the beginning of

this chapter. Another TEST mode menu item, described in the Srar La.~erPrinter4111OperationsMunuul, also letsyouprintouta listofallthe fonts available on the printer at any given moment.

3.4.1 Selecting fonts

Most popular software packages, particularly word processors, let you choosefontsfrom withintheprogram. They sendthe appropriatecommands to the printer and you don’t need to understand how they do it. MultiMafe

usespitch to identify different fonts, for example, while WordPerfect uses

print formats. The point is, you may noteven have to worry aboutselecting which font to use.

But not all packages do thejob for you. If you are in this situation, you can selectany fontattributementionedabove,either fromthecontrolpanel orby sending an Escape sequence command.

If youusethe controlpanelinprogram mode, selectCHARACTER.Just press the [>]button to get to the font attribute you want to set, press [v] to get to

itspossiblevalues,press[>]toscanthroughthem,andfinallypress[v]toslap in the value you want.

The procedures for selecting a font from a computer program is a bit more complicated. These font selection methods are detailed in the nextchapter.

3.4.2 Hints: Desktop publishing and page design

● Desktop publishing systems help you automate your specifications for

margins, cover design, typefaces, font sizes, placement of graphics and regular features. You build the specifications you want in templates, standard page designs you later simply call up on your screen and fill in with text.

. Somedesktoppublishing systems,such asAldus’sPageMaker, are page-

oriented: you put each page together individually. These are great for shorter documents, such as newsletters, brochures and letters. Other systems,suchasXerox VenturaPublisher,aredocument-oriented.That makes them better suited to technical manuals and long proposals or reports that go through many drafts.

Other ways in which such systems differ include whether they show on yourscreenwhat you willgetonpaper(code-basedprograms don’t),how welltheyhandlepictures, andhowhardthey areto learn.Thinkaboutyour needs before choosing a desktop publishing system.

c A few of today’s computer programs let you see several different font

sizesand typefaces onyourcomputerscreen.That capability isnecessary if you want to see on-screen exactly what will print on your Star LaserPrinter 4111.Desktop publishers call this capability WYSIWYG — “what you see is what you get”.

. When you design your pages, don’t vary font sizejust to fit text into the

space available. Go with a size that’s easy to read and be consistent. Neverbetempted touseall uppercase letters.When you want tohighlight

text, switch to a bold font or draw a box around it.

● Don’t be afraid to use white space. White space relieves eye fatigue and

looks more attractive.

3.4.3 Optional fonts

ManyoptionalfontsavailableforyourStarLaserPrinter4111complement its

internalfonts.These can give you more variety insymbolsets, spacing,font height, style and stroke weight. To your Courier fonts, for example, you mightadd italicsandbold, legalor math symbol sets,and sizesranging from 7 to 14points.

Optional fontsoffer different typefaces too. Ask your Star Micronics dealer about cartridges or disks for the following:

Prestige fonts Letter Gothic fonts H Gothic fonts Roman fonts Presentation fonts

Optical Character Reader fonts

Line drawing

Bar codes

3.4.4 Using cartridge fonts

To gain access to a font on a cartridge:

1.Slide the cartridge you want into the slot on the front of the printer.

2. Use either the control panel menu or a command from your computer to select the font you want.

Note: Donotinsertorpull cartridges outofthe printerwhiletheDATA lamp

is ON.

An interesting note about default cartridge fonts: Say you have selected on the control panel menu a cartridge font as your default font. Later you turn offtheprinter.Ifyou slipthe cartridge back inbeforeyouturn on theprinter again, that font will stillbe your default font.

3.4.5 How to download fonts

To download fonts from computer disk you’ll need more than a small 64K microcomputer. We recommend at least a 512Kcomputer with a couple of disk drives (a hard disk is better).

Many commercial font-management programs are now on the market, includingInsightDevelopment’sLaserControl, Blaha Software’sHotLead, SoftCraft’sLaserFonts, and thePCLprinterdriver in Microsoft’s Windo~)s. Theseutilityprogramshelpyou downloadfonts,then letyou accessthefonts automatically from your word processor or other programs.

,Most font files on disk that you buy to download into your printer have

Escape sequences right in the file, which simplify the process. Usually all youhavetodoiscopy thefilefrom yourcomputerintoyourprinter (youmust assign a font ID number first). If you download fonts with the MS-DOS COPY utility, make sure to use the COPY /Eloption. That will keep your computer from “interpreting” thedatayou send,which sometimesproduces badly shaped characters.

OK, let’s look at a couple of examples.

3.4.6 Downloading a font: example one

Example one is for a computer running just MS-DOS.

Say you’ve bought Hewlett-Packard’s Century Schoolbook fonts and want to download the regular (upright), italics and boldface characters. The HP disk labels for each file are CN 100RPN.R8P, CN 100IPN.R8P and CN1OOBPN.R8P.In case you’re interested, that’s HP’s code for CeNtury,

100decipoints, Regular (or Italic or Bold), ProportioNal, Roman-8 symbol set, Portrait. OneofthedisksyougetalsocontainsabatchfilenamedDOWNLOAD.BAT. To loadthe regularuprightfontyoumake surethe printerisonline,then after your computer’s A> prompt you type:

DOWNLOAD CN1OORPN.R8P

When the program asksforthefontIDnumber you key inanumber between Oand 32767. Then when the program asks whether you wantthefontstored permanently or temporarily you type either P or T (a temporary font disappears if you press the printer’s [RESET] button). Finally the program asks if you want to print a sample of the font and you reply Y or N for yes or no.

You then do the same for the italics and boldface files, for example typing for the italics font:

DOWNLOAD CN100IPN.R8P

The promptswill bethesame,butyouhaveto remember to usedifferent font

ID numbers for the upright, italicand boldface fonts.

3.4.7 Downloading a font: example two

Example two is for a computer running Aldus Corporation’s PageMaker desktop publishing program with Microsoft Windn-t’s.

PageMaker provides a print driver called HPPCL.DRV, and a program called PCLPFM.EXE which creates thedata itneeds to printagiven font.To create font data for your Century Schoolbook fonts, at the A> prompt you type:

PCLPFM CNIOO*.R8P

The asterisk, a “wildcard character”, indicates that PCLPFM is to create a data file for all three fonts— regular, italics and bold. The program asks if youwanttocreateafilecalledAPPNDWIN.INI to append intothe Wiruhws font menu file: type Y for yes.

After PCLPFM has made the font data file, with your word processor open the Window’sfile called WIN.INI and key in the font defaults you want to apply. At the section referring to the HPPCL printer driver, insert the APPNDWIN.INI file you created earlier.

That’s it! From now on your Century Schoolbook fonts will appear on the print menus of all your Wimkwt’sapplications.

With both examples, how you use the fonts depends on your applications

software. As you know, sending commands to change fonts will probably require some experimenting: be patient. These commands are described in the following chapter.

The process of downloading a font you’ve designed yourself is not so straightforward. As youcan only do this,creating and downloading fonts is described further in chapter 4.

3.4.8 Hints: Managing memory

Printing fancy stuff can be quite cumbersome foryourprinter. You trade offfancinessagainstspeed:ifyou optforfewer flourishes, you give your printer breathing room in memory. And that rewards you with faster output. Any of the following will slow down your laser printer:

- text over 20 points,

- lots of lines or patterns,

- graphics,

- macros,

-justified text.

. You may choose to add an optionalRAM board toyour StarLaserPrinter

4111if you need to download many fonts.

. Alternatively, consider either a software or hardware print spooler if

printingholdsupyourcomputer more thanyou’dlike. Aspoolerprovides a separate temporary memory space that holds the documents to be printed, and is particularly handy in a multi-user system.

● Some page makeup programs automatically download each font as

needed, then flush that font from printer memory to make room for the next font. This approach can make good sense if you’re sharing your printer with other people in a computer network. It keeps the printer’s RAM from becoming overloaded. However, the downloading time can

significantly slow down your printer’s throughput.

. Moretypically,you willdownload afont inthemorning(perhapswiththe

MS-DOS COPY command) beforeyouprintyour firstdocument,andthat

fontwillthenstayinthe printer’smemory. If youusea singledownloaded

font(ormacro) throughouttheday,you will find it mostefficienttokeep itinthe laserprinter’smemory. Youdefinitely shoulddownload fontsthis way ifyouusea print spooler.Ifyou’re in anetwork,however, make sure you don’t download duplicate fonts.

. Howmanydownloadablefontscan youhaveinonedocument?That’snot

soeasy to answer. Mostofyourlaserprinter’s memory isnotavailablefor storing fonts, because it has to storeeach page before printing it, as well as any macros or overlays you are using.

To see how much memory is available for extra fonts, put the printer offlineand pressthe[TEST] buttonto printa statussheet. Yourprinter will beep and showacontrol panel message if you try to overload itsmemory by downloading too many fonts. It then will continue printing with the closest available font to that requested.

As a general rule, you can include at least a dozen downloadable fonts in adocument. Added totheinternalfonts,thatshouldbeplenty— itdoesn’t make good design to mix many typefaces. A telltale sign of amateurish laser printing is too many fonts in one document. To keep a wide variety of extra fonts in memory, however, many Star LaserPrinter 4111users (especially those sharingtheprinter on a network) prefer to add the optional board with the second megabyte of RAM.

FW7terControl ‘● “

Language

The Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 111isanearlier kind of laserprinterthan your

Star LaserPrinter 4111.You should have no trouble running most popular software packages, as those programs likely can send LaserJet III com-

mands.

Becausethe LaserJetIIIisalaserprinter,though, itscommandscan giveyou more control over your Star LaserPrinter 4111than ispossible with the other built-in command sets. Recognizing that reality, we’ve put examples into this chapter.

At the end of the chapter we describe howto create and use your own fonts, and also how to save time by writing command macros.

4.1 PRINTER CONTROL LANGUAGE

4.1.1 What do Printer Control Language look like?

The Star LaserPrinter 4111includes a dozen common control codes (such as <CR> for carriage returns) and single-character Escape sequences (such as <ESC> E for resetting theprinter). Butalltheother commands you can send your Star LaserPrinter 4111look like this:

<ESC> cc n C

in which the cc prefix is a symbolor two showing the general category of commands to which this one belongs, n is some variable you want to use in this command, and C is the specific command you want performed.

Two importantdetailsmake PCLcommands.First, allEscape sequencesend with a capital letter. If you don’t make the last character uppercase, your printer won’t know whenthe Escape sequence ends and will treat following characters as part of the same command.

Second, in PCL commands each number or character you put after the

<ESC? code is an actual ASCII symbol.

For example, the PCL command that sets the right margin to column 65 is:

<ESC> &a 65 M

which you would code in BASIC as:

10 LPRINT CHR$ (27):

“&a65M”

That command sends your printer the symbols “6” a~d “5”, which its

program interprets as the column number.

4.1.2 Combining Escape sequences

Later inthis chapter we describe one way to selectafont, byjust specifying what font attributes you want, such as bold or proportional spacing. If you select afontby specifying every oneofitsattributes, you can becertain that you’re selectingsuccessfully.Butitcould mean a fair bitof repetitivetyping eachtimeyouchooseafont.Thisappliestoothercommands too,notjust font selection.

Here’s a way you can save yourself a few keystrokes: type in those commands that have the same command-category prefix as just one long Escape sequence. To combine commands this way, type the <ESC> and command-category prefix just once, and capitalize only the last command character.

For example, to define the style, weight and character face for the primary font, you might send these command:

<ESC>

(S 1S

<ESC>

(S 7B

<ESC>

(S 3T

which would produce italics boldface Courier.But this single command does the same thing, all with one blow:

<ESC>

(S I S 7b 3T

4.2 CONTROLLING THE PRINTER

4.2.1 Self test

You can check how your LaserPrinter 4111is printing and have a look at its parameter settings by sending this Self Test command:

<ESC>

Notice that the z islowercase;this is the only PCL command that ends with a small letter. After you send a Self Test command, the printer finishes printinganypages left initsmemory. Then on a newpage it printsitscurrent parameters (just important items such asnumberof copies and fonts in use). The printer finishes off the page with a continuous display of all the characters in itsdefault font.

The printer also quickly checks its interface. Assuming it finds no trouble,

the printer isthen ready for yournext page. If the printer detects a problem it shows a control panel message, which you can look up h your Star

La.~erPrinter4111Operations Manual.

4.2.2 Set number of copies

Youcan printupto99 copiesofeach ofthepagesyousendtotheprinter. You may send this command anywhere within the text on a page; it will stay in effect for that and all subsequent pages until you send another such command:

<ESC> &/n X

All you have to do is change the n sign in this command to the number of pages you want. (The tcharacter after the & is a lowercase L.)

4.2.3 Set feed selection

One thing you can do isprint directly onenvelopes as well as regular paper. You use this Feed Selectcommand to tellyour printer to select either a page or envelope from the multi-purpose tray, or from the cassette (option):

<ESC> &/n H

For n enter one of the numbers from this table:

FEED SELECTED

O(zero) the printer only ejects the current page

1(one) theprintertakesits nextpagefrom themulti-purpose

tray

the printer takes a regular page manually 3 theprinter accepts an envelopeyoufeed inmanually 4 the printertakesitsnext pagefromthepaper cassette

Should an unprinted page be in the printer’s memory when you give this command, the paper for that page will feed from where you’ve indicated. Therefore you can make this the lastcommand on a page. The new feed

setting stays in operation until you change it.

4.2.4 Reset

Most software packages automatically reset the printer to the initialdefaults

beforestartingaprintjob. It’sagood ideaforyou tofollow thesame practice, just to make sure you get the settings you want.

When you want to set all your laser printer’s parameters back to their initial default values (some people call this “initializing” the printer), send

this command:

<ESC> E

.The printer will finish printing any pages left in its memory before

resetting the parameters. Resetting clears unneeded temporary fonts from

your printer’s memory. Any permanent fonts or macros you have down-

loaded, however, will still be there after you send a reset command. Permanent and temporary fonts are described at the end of this chapter’s “Controlling Fonts” section.

4.2.5 Example: Printer controls

Let’s see what happens when we put these commands together. Say you have just turned on your laser printer. What happens when you send the following commands to your printer?

<ESC>

<ESC> E <ESC> &/2h 2X

As a BASIC program these would look like this:

NEW

10 WIDTH “LPT1:“,255 20 LPRINT CHR$(27);“Z“

30 LPRINT CHR$(27);“E” 40 LPRINT CHR$(27);“&12h2X” RUN

First, if it is working properly the printer prints a test print with all the characters in its default font (Courier).

Next the printer sets all itsparameter values— including feed selectionand

number of copies — to their initial settings.

‘ The last command does two things: it tells the printer to accept paper you

will feed in yourself, and to print each page two times. This is handy when you want two copies of a letter on preprinted letterhead.

You can now send your letter from your word processing program to the printerand feed in thosepages.When you’re done, youmay wantto sendthe <ESC> E command one more time.

4.3 PAGE ORIENTATION

You might reasonably think of page orientation as a page formatting issue.

To print words widthwise on apage, however, each letter in effect has to lie

on itsback. So orientation is actually a font attribute, and is treated as such later on in this chapter.

4,3.1 Page Length

Themulti-purposetray setsthe defaultpagesizefor yourlaserprinter. When you want a different size, you’ll need to reset that page size. You should always change the page length be@-e you send text for printing. The Page Length command setsthe number of linesthatcan printon a page (lines per inch times the number of inches).

The Page Length command format is:

<ESC> &~n P

wheren isthenumber oftextlinesonthepage;itcan be anynumberbetween 5 and 128.

The default number of lines isthe length of the paper tray times 6 linesper

inch.For 11-inchletter-sizepaper that works out to 66 lines (that’salso the

default when you haven’t put in a tray).

If you don’t want the default length, you should send the Page Length command bejtire you send text for printing. The table below should help you pick theright number of lines. Decide which orientation and paper size you want, then use the n under your preferred lines/inch:

ORIENTATION

Portrait Portrait Portrait Portrait

Landscape Landscape Landscape Landscape

PAPERSIZE

Executive Letter A4 Legal Executive Letter A4 Legal

@6LINEs/INcHn @8LINEs/INcH 60 80 66 88 70 93

112

43 58 51

* Printinglandscapes on legalpaper istrickier.Firstsetonportraitmodeand

send the command <ESC> &?84P and then change the orientation to landscape.

An example: Say you want to manually print legal-size pages at eight lines per inch.The following commands combine manual feeding with thatpage le~gth:

<ESC> &t2h 112P

If your command specifies apage length different than the paper in the tray, the printer will go offline and display a message asking for the proper tray. After you change the tray, press the [ON LINE] button to restart the printer. It doesn’t hurt to print short pages on long paper. If you inadvertently print a legal-sizepage onto executive or letter-size paper,theprinterwill scroll that page across two sheets.

If you have set the paper feeder from the control panel to “AUTO SELEC- TION”, a “select page length”command (<ESC> &/n P) will automatically select the cassette which contains the paper selected by thecommand. If no cassette currently containstheright size of paper, the display will ask you to insert the appropriate size of paper.

Also, the Page Length command puts all margins back to their defaults. So after you send it, check whether you have to send any of the following margin-setting commands.

4.3.2 Side margins

Margin settingsdefine that part of the page on which the printer can print. You setsidemarginsto particularcolumns.The widthofacolumn differs for each font, depending on its pitch. Ten-pitch Courier, for example, puts column 30 three inches from the left edge of the page (column 0). But 12pitch Prestige Elite puts column 30just two and a half inches in.

You cannot set the left margin further over than the right margin. Use the following command to set the left margin, setting n to be the column number where you want the left margin to start:

<ESC> &a n L

Similarly, to settherightmargin, you send this command with yourdesired column number:

<ESC> &a

?7M

If you want to put both left and right margirisback to the printer’s printable limits— in other words, to “clear” the sidemargins — send this command:

<ESC> 9

4.3.3 Topmargin

Vertically, the LaserPrinter 4111confines its printing to its “text length”,

which shouldalwaysbelessthan itspage length.Both aremeasured inlines.

You can change the meaning of a “line” with line-spacing commands described later in this chapter.

When you set the top margin though, it does not change, even when you change the definition of a line. You can use this command to set the top margin anytime.Justbe aware thatif thecurrentprint position isbelow your margin, you’llhave to move the printposition back up. Naturally, you have to keep your top margin inside the page-length limit.

Use this command to set the top margin, settingn to be the number of lines down from the top of the page that you want left blank before you start printing:

<ESC> &tn E

Note that the character following the “&” is a lowercase “L”.

4.3.4 Textlength and the bottom margin

By default, the LaserPrinter 4111automatically gives you top and bottom marginsofthesamesize.Soyouonlyneedto sendtheText Lengthcommand when you want different top and bottom margins.

If you want adifferent bottom margin, firstdecidehow many text lineswill produce the margin you want. Check that they won’t produce a bottom margin lower than the page length. Then send the following Text Length command, entering for

}7 your desired number of lines:

<ESC> &tn F

The Page Length, Top Margin and Text Length commands therefore work together to set the bottom margin:

bottom margin = page length – (top margin + text length).

The bottom margin is called the “perforation region” with printers that use

continuous forms. You normally want to skip the perforations between the

continuous pages, but sometimes you don’t (for example when you print

labels).

Though you likely won’t often want to do it,the Star LaserPrinter 4111will

letyoucompletely ignorethebottommargin too.Ifyouchoosetoprintbelow the bottom margin, remember that you might lose words or graphics in the unprintable region at the edge of the page. The command looks like this:

<ESC> &?n L

If you want to allow printing below the bottom margin, for n enter O(zero).

But if you want to forbid printing below the margin, which is the default, enter 1(one).

formatting

4.3.5 Example: Page

OK, let’shave ago at formatting a page. The picture of the page we want is

just below. The actual width of the text on the page depends on which font

weuse. Let’splan onusingour 16.66-pitchLine Printerfontateightlinesper inch.

column10

column70

topmargin.8lines {

textlength=

100 lines

{

bottommargin. ~

4 lines

}

pagelength. 1

occasionalfootnotes

12 lines

As it prints, we also want to permit the occasional one-line footnote below the normal bottommargin.And when we’re finished printing, let’sreset the

side margins so we can switch to our usual font width.

Here are the commands that will produce this format for us:

<ESC> &tl 12P <ESC> &a 10~70M

<ESC> &/8e lOOfOL

(We’ll send our page here.)

<ESC> 9

4.4 MOVING THE PRINT POSITION

4.4.1 Many ways to move

The LaserPrinter 4111provides excellent control over the print position — whereyoupoise yourlaser“pen”.

Horizontally,youcan sendbackspace and carriagereturncommands.Vertically,you can movetheprintposition down thepagebyprinting somany linesper inch,orby sending line-feed and half

line-feedcommands. You can move horizontallyorvertically to tab settings

as well.

Those aren’t all. You can also tell the StarLaserPrinter 4111to move itsprint position, either vertically or horizontally, in increments of:

1/10, 1/12or 3/50 inch (pitch settings), 1/48or 1/120inch (line or column definitions), 1/300inch (dots), 1/720inch (tenths of a point).

All these commands are described below.

One hintabout moving theprintposition: youcan confuseyourselftrying to use more than two different units during the same session. So decide beforehand how precise you need to be in moving the print position, not forgetting any graphics you want to include. Then stick to the unit(s) you choose.

4.4.2 Lines per inch

Thisverticalline-spacingcommand givesyou more optionsthanjust thesix or eight lines per inch of early printers. Use thiscommand to set how many lines you want in each vertical inch of your page:

<ESC> &/n D

For ~ you enter the number of linesper inch you want — any of: 1,2,3,4,

6,8, 12,16,24 or 48. If you enter a number other than these the printer will ignore the command.

4.4.3 Defining the space and column

Beforeyouuseprintpositioningcommands, youfirstmay wanttochangethe definitions of the line or space (sometimes called “vertical and horizontal motion indexes”, VMI andHMI). These definitionsdon’tactually move the print position. Instead, they define two basic units you can use in print position commands.

What’s important aboutthespace isthat it defines how far theprintposition travelsforevery character you print (except for proportionally spaced text). The space can also be thoughtofasthewidth ofa vertical print column. One column widthisthe widthofthespacecharacter inthecurrentfont,nomatter whether it is monospaced or proportionally spaced.

Occasionally you may want to change space width to override the current pitch setting. Let’s look at an example. The space width comes in units of

l/120th ofaninch,andtheCourierfontcanprint 10characters perinch.Each character covers a tenth — 12/120ths— of an inch, so that font’s default space width is 12 units. If we change its space width to 6, each character would half-overlap the one before it.

If you are using <S1>and <SO> to shift between a primary and secondary font, it’s a good idea to change the space width after every shift.

To change the space width you send this command:

,<ESC>&k n H

inwhich forn you can enter anumber from O(zero) to 840. A width ofOwill

print characters on top of each other; a width of 840 will print them seven inches apart.

4.4.5 Defining line depth

The linedep[h(sometimes called the“verticalmotion index”) specifieshow fardown apagetheprintpositionwill movefor each linefeed. You probably won’t use the line depth as much as lines-per-inch. Line depth can be more precise but it isn’t as easy to calculate. The linedepth comes in multiples of

l/48th of an inch.

The important fact about the line depth is that when you change it you are changing the actual meaning of a “line”.

When you increase the linedepth you effectively decrease the number of linesper inch,and increase the page length.

The command you send to set the line depth looks like this:

<ESC> &t’nC

(notethatthe character after the “&” isa lower-case “L”) in which for n you can enter anumber from Oto 336. If n iszero, lines will be printed on top of each other, and if 336, they will be printed 7 inches apart.

4.4.6 Movjng the PRINT posjtjon horizontally

You can use three different units to move the print position horizontally: columns (space-widths), dots (each l/300th of an inch), or tenths of a point (decipoints). Both columns and decipoints can be fractions to two decimal places,suchas45.75 decipoints— whichprovidesagreatdegreeofaccuracy for graphics applications.

Moreover, for each of these you can move the print positionhorizontally in

two ways. You can move ah.wlurelyfrom the left edge of the page. Or you can moverelatively,awayfromthe current printposition.To showyou want to move away from the current print position, you put a plus (+) or minus

(–)

sign before the number of units you want to move.

If you send a command that would put the print position outside either side margin, the LaserPrinter 4111will let you do just that. However, you can’t sendtheprintpositionfurtherthan itsprintablelimitsattheedgesofthepage.

4.4.7 Horizontal moves: by columns, decjpojnts

and dots

To move the print position horizontally a number of columns, send the command:

<ESC> &a n C

in which for n you enter thenumber of columns you wish to move theprint

position,

So to move to column 45 you send the command:

<ESC> &a 45C

Butto move 45 columns tothe right of the current print position, you send:

<ESC> &a +45C

To move theprintposition horizontally acertain number ofdecipoints, send the command:

<ESC> &a n H

inwhichforn you enter thenumberofdecipoints you wish tomovetheprint position(preceded by a+or– signifyouwant tomove away fromthecurrent position).

Youcanmovetheprintpositionhorizontallyby dotsboth waystoo.You can move anumberofdots away fromtheleft edge ofthepage, or you can move a number of dots away from the current print position.

To move horizontally this way, send the command:

<ESC> *p n X

in which for n you put either the number of dots away from the page edge, or (preceded by a + or – sign) the relative number of dots away from the current position.

So to move 20 dots from the left edge you send this command:

<ESC> *p 20x

And to move 20 dots to the left of the current position you send:

<ESC> *p –20x

You can also move thecursor 8 columns at a time horizontally by use of the

horizontal tab command. Simply send a tab character:

<HT>

to do this. Reverse tabbing is not possible.

4.4.8 Moving theprint position vertically

You can use similarunitstomovetheprintpositionvertically:lines,dots,or decipoints. Bothlinesand decipointscan befractionsto two decimal places.

You can also move the print positionabsolutely down from the top edge of thepage, or relati}’ely,away from the current printposition.Again, to show you want to move away from the current print position you put a plus (+) or

minus (–) sign before the number of units you want to move.

The important difference about moving vertically up or down is what the printer does when the print position hits thepagetoporbottom. Ifyoutryto move above the top margin, the print position stays rightatthe margin. And if you move the print position down off the page, the page is ejected and printing continues on the next page.

4.4.9 Verticalmoves: bylines, decipoints and dots

To move the print position vertically a certain number of lines, send the command:

<ESC> &a n R

in which for n you enter the number of lines you wish to move the print

position.Sotomoveto line45, measured from the topedgeofthe page, you

send the command:

<ESC> &a 45R

But to move 45 lines down from the current print position, you send:

<ESC> &a +45R

Tomovetheprintpositionverticallyacertainnumber ofdecipoints,sendthe command:

<ESC> &a n V

inwhichforn youenter the number ofdecipointsyou wish to move theprint

positiondown (orprecede thenumber with a + or– sign ifyouwanttomove

up or down from the current position).

Finally, youcan move a number of dotsdown from the topedgeofthe page, oryoucan move anumber ofdotsupordown from thecurrentprintposition. To movetheprintpositionupordown an absoluteorrelativenumberofdots,

send the command:

<ESC> *p n Y

inwhich for n you puteitherthe absolutenumber ofdots down, or (preceded by a + or – sign) the relative number of dots up or down from the current position.

So to move 20 dots down you send the command:

<ESC> *p 20Y

And to move 20 dots up you send:

<ESC> *p–20Y

4.4.10 Combining move commands

One thing about moving the print position with the above commands isthat they let you think of your page in terms of Cartesian coordinates.

Allwemean isthat youcan combinehorizontal and verticalmovements that use the same units. If you send this command,

<ESC> *p 40x 20Y

the print position will move to a spot40 dots from the leftedge of the page

and 20 dots down from the top edge.

And if you send this one:

<ESC> &a +40h –20V

the print position will move right 40 decipoints and up 20 decipoints.

.4.4.11Backspace

The Backspacecontrolcode worksexactly as youmightexpect:itmoves the print position one column to the left.

<BS>

Moving theprint position back doesnotdestroy any characters already sent. In fact, because of that, this command can be quite useful. It lets you superimpose one character over another.

Say you want to indicatea blank space as the letter b with a slash/ through it,an old programming symbol.Just send the bandthen follow itwith <BS> and the slash, and you get this: ~.

4.4.12 Carriage return

The Carriage Return command by itselfonly moves the print position back to the left margin of the line on which it currently sits:

<CR>

If you want the print position to move down a line as well, send a separate Line Feed command each time, or use Define Automatic Line Ends (explained below) to couple these two control codes.

4.4.13 Line feeds

The LineFeedcommand advancestheprintposition onelinedownthepage. The meaning of a line is set by the Line Depth command.

To send a line feed just send this control code:

<LF>

The Half Line Feed command is the one you want for subscripts. This command moves the print position down the page one half the current line depth:

<ESC> =

To sendareverse HalfLine Feed,moving theprintposition upto letyouprint a superscript, use this command:

<ESC> &a –.5 R

4.4.14 Form feed

This command, like the [PRINT] button, makes the printer advanceto a new

sheetof paper. When you send the<FF> controlcode you are alsotellingthe

printer to print all its stored page information. Remember to send this command to make sure any lastpartial page in your printer’s memory gets printed:

<FF>

4.4.15 Define automatic line endings

When youpresstheCarriageReturnkeywhatdoyouexpecttohappen?Most people think a computer keyboard should work like a typewriter, with a Can-iage Return starting a new line as well.

Butcomputer programs don’t have to stick to thatanalogy. Some programs (particularly graphics packages) want a Carriage Return to just move the print position back to the left edge of the page. And they want a Line Feed to move down to a new line without going back to the beginning of the line.

So you can specify exactly how you want <CR>, <LF> and <FF> to work with this command:

<ESC> &k n G

For n enter one of the numbers from this table:

AUTOMATIC COMMAND

O(zero)<CR>, <LF> and <FF> work according to their basic

1(one)

definitions, <CR> will also generate a <LF> (but <LF> and <FF> stay the same), <LF> or <FF> will produce a <CR> too (<CR> by itself won’t change), <CR> generates a <LF> too, and either <LF> or <FF> produces a <CR>.

After you send the command <ESC> &k 2 G for example, every time the printer gets a Line Feed command it will move the print position down and over to the start of the line. When it gets a Form Feed, the printer will also move the print position back to the left.

4.4.16 Autowrap

One nice thing we get used to with a word processingprogram isnot having toworryaboutwords goingpasttherightmargin. We don’thave to listenfor that typewriter bell at the margin any more. This command does pretty much the same thing your word processing programdoes.The important difference isthat itdoesnot wrap words.When you turn on Autowrap, if you send too many characters for a line the laser

printer prints the overflow on the next line.

If Autowrap ison,when theprintergets acharacter that would printbeyond theright margin, itreturnstheprint positionforthatcharacterbackto theleft and one line down (Carriage Return and Line Feed).

The Autowrap command works like a toggle switch:

<ESC>

&S n C

If for n you enter O(zero) then this wrap-around mode will apply.

But if for n you put 1(one) this automatic wrapping of characters will not happen. The default if you don’t send a command is no wrapping.

Note: Even when Autowrap is on, the printer will print beyond the right

margin if you have sent one of the direct positioning commands described above, which move the print position past the margin.

Also, note that Autowrap doesn’t move the whole word down to the next line— that’s ajob for a word processor, not your laser printer.

4.4.17 Pushing and popping the print position

This provides a wonderful way to keep track of the print position. It works by letting you keep a list of up to 20 print positions.

You can “push” the current print position onto the top of the list whenever you want. Later, you can “pop” off whatever position isatthetopofthelist, making it the current print position.

When would you want to save and restore print positions this way? Whenever you “needto interrupt what you’re printing now to stick something special onto the page. This is most handy when you need tojump from text to graphics and back.

Say you’ve written one routine that puts the page number in the same place

onevery page, andanotherthatundercertain circumstancesprintstwo heavy

lines.You printmerrilyalonguntilyouhaveto printthelines.Youthen push

the current print position to execute the line-printing routine.

Butpartway through thatyouhitthepage-numberspot.Soyou pushtheprint position again and run the page-number routine.Then you can pop the print position to print the second line. And when that’s done you pop it again to return to printing text.

As you might suspect, this can involve fairly complicated programming, typically using the macro commands described later in this chapter.

To push or pop a print position you send this command:

<ESC> &f n S

Fern youenterOtopush (save)thecurrentprintposition,or 1to pop(restore) the last position saved off the list.

Note: The last position pushed onto the list will always be the first one

popped back later.

4.5 CONTROLLING FONTS

4.5.1 Font selection

The Star LaserPrinter 4111lets you define and select fonts three ways: as primary and secondary fonts, or by font identification number, or by description.We’lllookatthefirsttwoways now, andexplain selecting afont by its attributes a little further on.

However youchoosetorefertofonts,remember thatafontmustbeavailable before you select it.So if you wantto select a cartridge or downloaded font, you first have to put in the cartridge or download the font.

4.5.2 Selecting primary or secondary fonts

Ofthethree selection methods, you will savethemost programming time by shifting back and forth between primary and secondary fonts. That’s counterbalanced, though, by the fact that you often need more than two fonts.

Typically, you use primary and secondary fonts to flip back and forth

between two different symbol sets— forexample IBM symbol sets 1and 2. Youcandesignateany two fonts,whether internal,cartridge ordownloaded,

as primary and secondary.

The wayyoushow you’retalking aboutaprimaryfont inanEscape sequence is to follow the <ESC> symbol with a left parenthesis. For example,

<ESC>

(S 10H

means you want your primary font pitched at ten characters to the inch. Typing a right parenthesis instead means you are referring to the secondary font:

<ESC>

)S 10H

You define a font as primary or secondary as you select it. To make a font your primary or secondary font,you use font-description Escape sequences such as those just above, specifying the attributes you want.

If you don’t explicitly indicate what attributes you want for the primary or

secondary font, the printer will use the same default font for both. This

default font’s attributes include the Roman-8 symbol set, 10-pitchspacing,

12-pointheight, upright style, medium weight, and Courier typeface.

After your primary fontisselected, you can choose itforprintingby sending

this Shift In control code:

<S1>

All the text you send after that command will print in the primary font.

Your laser printer shiftsto the secondary font when you send this ShiftOut

code:

<so>

4.5.3 Assigning font ID numbers

The second way to define and select fonts is by using font ID numbers. You

may prefer this method ifyou frequently usemany fonts.Whilenotasshort

as<S1>and <SO>, it’squicker than describing fontattributes over and over

again.

To give an ID number to an internal or cartridge font, you first make it the

primary font. That is, you send a left-parenthesis Escape sequence (a font

attribute,command as described below) and the Shift In control code. Then,

to assign an ID number to the font, you send this command:

<ESC>

*C H D

FornyoucanenteranynumberbetweenOand32767asthefont IDnumber.

(Not that you can have more than 64 fonts in the printer at once, even with

theoptionalmemory board.A printer would need an elephantinememory to

hold 32767 fonts!)

4.5.4 Selecting downloaded fonts

Theeasiestway to selectamongdownloaded fontsistousefontID numbers.

When you download a font you make the Assign Font ID command above thefirst command inyour sequence(see“How to download yourownfonts” later in this chapter). After you’ve assigned an ID number to a downloaded font,youcanselect itasyourprimaryfont withthisSelectFontID command:

<ESC> ( n X

in which n is your desired font’s ID number.

If you use many fonts you’ll use that command to select among them. But what if you prefer to just use <S1>or <SO> to shift between primary and secondaryfonts? You wanttoselectadownloadedfontID asyour secondary font. This is the command to send:

<ESC> ) rIX

4.5.5 Font attributes

The third way to select a font is to simply describe what font attributes you want.(Remember, selecting afontdoesnotmodify afont.You can’tgetbold or 14-pointcharacters ifyoudon’thave abold or 14-pointfontinthe printer. )

In listingtheattributesyouwant, itwillhelpyoutoprioritize them the same way yourLaserPrinter 4111does. Your printer ranks the various attributesa font can have this way (from most to least important):

orientation

symbol set

spacing (proportional or monospaced)

pitch (characters per inch)

font height (in points)

style (italic or upright)

stroke weight (lightto bold)

typeface

The laser printer just zips down this chain of attributes one by one,

eliminating fonts that don’t match what you want, until it gets down to one

unique font that matches your request. If the printer matches down to, say,

styleor weight but can go no further, it will give you itsclosest font to your

request.

And if you don’t specify a particular value for some attribute, the printer assume’syou want the value that attribute had in the last font you specified

(or the default value if you‘vejust turned on the printer). This can save you

someeffort: ifthefontyou want has an attributethe same asthecurrent font, you don’t have to specify that attribute again.

Orientation

Portrait orientation prints text across the width of a page. Landscape orientation prints text sideways up the length of a page.

The Star LaserPrinter 4111ismore flexible about orientation than mostother laser printers; it lets you simply rotate any portrait font to the landscape orientation or vice versa. To startyou off when you change orientation, the printer resets all its margins and its column and line definitions to their default settings.

When you want to select the opposite orientation, send this command:

<ESC>&t’n O

in which’for n you put Oto get portrait orientation,

1to get landscape orientation, 2 to get upside-down portrait orientation, or 3 to get upside-down landscape orientation.

(Notice: the t’characterafter the& is a lowercase L.)

To select the direction in which characters, raster graphics and fill patterns are printed, use the following command:

<ESC>&a n P

in which for n you put Oto select the portrait direction,

90 to select the landscape direction,

180to select the upside-down portrait direction, and 270to selecttheupside-down landscape direction.

Symbol sets: a review

Each font can havemany symbolsets,each being a subsetofallthe possible characters of the font. These subgroups include different symbols for differentnationsorforlawyers orartistsormathematicians. Any two symbol sets, moreover, may storethe same symbol at a different font position inthe printer’s memory.

The defaultsymbolsetisRoman-8, which includes allASCII characters plus dozens of accented letters. But you can use any of the sets shown below. Technically you can pair any symbol set with any internal, cartridge or downloaded font; however it doesn’t make much sense to print text with a math or line-drawing symbol set.

TheStarLaserPrinter4111provides twodifferentsymbolsetcommands. You put a code into one command to select aparticular symbol set for your pri-

mary or secondary font. You use the other command to select the current or

default symbol set for your primary or secondary font.

Selecting a symbol set

This first symbol setcommand lets you select a particular symbol set for the current font. To select a symbol set for your primary font, send this command:

<ESC> ( n

For n enter one of the following symbol codes. The first character must be a digit and the second an uppercase letter.

Note: The symbol sets marked with * can select when the approval Font

Cartridge is installed.

CODEn OA OB OD OE OF OG 01 OK ON 00

OQ 0s Ou OY

ID IE IF IG 10 IQ IS

IU 2K 2Q 2s 2U 3Q 3s

5M 5s 6J 6M

7J 8M 8Q 8U

;

SYMBOLSET Math-7symbols*

Line Draw characters*

1S060:Norwegian RomanExtension* ISO25:French HPGerman 1S0 15:Italian

1S0 14:JISASCII ECMA-94 OCR-A*

Math-8Asymbols* ISO 11:Swedish 1S06: USASCII BarCode39* 1S061:Norwegian

1S04: UK 1S069:French 1S021:German OCR-B* Math-8Bsymbols* HPSpanish Legal 1S057:Chinese Pifont-Asymbols* 1S0 17:Spanish 1S02:IRV OCR-BExtension* 1S0 10:Swedish 1S0 16:Portuguese PSMath ISO84:Portuguese MicrosoftPublishing VenturaMath 1S085:Spanish DeskTop Math-8symbols IBM-PCSet* Roman-8 BarCodeEAN/UPC* IBM-PCExtension* Windows

10J 10U

1IQ

IIU

12u 13J 14J

15U

PSText IBM-PC(US) ECMA-947Bit* IBM-PC(Denmark/Norway) PC-850 VenturaInternational VenturaUS Pifontsymbols

To select a symbol set code for your secondary font, flip the parenthesis:

<ESC> ) n

and for n substitute your choice from the codes above.

Selecting the current or default symbol set

Your printer can use either the primary or the secondary font as its current font. And that current font has its current symbol set. Your printer also remembers its default font and symbol set, which are Courier with Roman8 (unless you’ve changed their initial parameter values through the control panel menu).

The following command lets you select one of those symbol sets for your primary font.

<ESC> ( n @

For n enter one of the following selection values for your primary font:

n VALUE

SELECTION

O(zero) or 1 (one)

Selects the default symbol set

2 Selects the current font’s symbol set (this

forcestheprinterto selectitsbestmatching font)

Selects all of the default font’s attributes (notjust symbol set)

. Similarly, you can selecteitherthedefault or the current symbolsetforyour

secondary font. You also may want to use the same symbol set for both primary and secondary fonts.

To do these tasks, you can send the following command to select which symbol set you want for your secondary font:

<ESC> ) n @

For n enter one of the values from this table:

n VALUE SELECTION O(zero)

Selects the default symbol set

1(one)

Selects same symbol set as primary font 2 Selects the current font’s symbol set 3

Selects all the default font’s attributes (not just symbol set)

Example: Symbol set commands

Let’s take a shortlookat how you use these commands. Here’sthe scenario:

You are already using theLinePrintertypeface, but want to use the German symbolset asyouarewritingareportforyour Berlin office and need umlaut

characters for several names in the report.

Then in the report you decide to use a proprietary product name, so want to nipoutto grab the @symbolonalegalcartridge font you’ve already loaded, then return to your German set. When your report’s all done, you want to return the printer to its Roman-8 default.

Here arethe commands that will do thejob for us:

<ESC> ( OG

(you start your report here)

<ESC> ( IU @ <ESC> ( OG

(you finish your report here)

<ESC> ( O@

Ifyouhad finished with <ESC> ( 3@ theprinter wouldreturn to itsstandard Courier font, notjust its Roman-8 symbol set.

Spacing

If you specify monospaced for a font, each character prints with the same width. But if you specify proportional spacing the design of each character determines itswidth. Todefinehowyouwantyourprimaryfontspaced,send this command:

<ESC>

(S n P

in which for n you put O(zero) to get monospaced,

or 1(one) to get proportional spacing.

Ifyouspecifyproportionalspacing itdoesn’tmatter ifyoualso specifypitch, because spacingisahigher priority fontattribute.Theprinter willjust ignore the pitch request.

Todefinespacingforyoursecondaryfont, usethesamenumbers andjust flip the parenthesis:

<ESC>

)S n P

Pitch

Pitch defines how many characters per inch you want for a monospacedpitch font. Your Star LaserPrinter 4111’sinternal monospaced-pitch fonts havesettingsof 10, 12or 16.66characters perinch.Cartridgeordownloaded fonts with monospaced pitches often have other settings for characters per inch.

To select the pitch you want for the primary font, send this command:

<ESC>

(S n H

where for nyouput inhowmany characters per inchyouwant. For example, <ESC> (s 12Hwill pack twelve characters into each inch.

The corresponding pitch command for the secondary font is:

<ESC>

)S n H

Youcan useadifferentcommand insteadofthese forgeneral character pitch setting. This command, since it doesn’t have parentheses, covers both the

primary and secondary fonts. It looks like this:

<ESC> &k n S

For n you enter a pitch code from the following table:

CHARACTERS PER INCH

PITCH CODE n

cpi (pica) O(zero)

16.66cpi (condensed)

Font height

The height of the characters you print is measured in point sizes. The Star LaserPrinter4111provides fontsin6,7,8.5, 10,12,14,16,18,24and 36point sizes. If the font height you specifically ask for is not available, the printer will select the font with the size closest to your request.

To select font height for the primary font use the following command. For n enter the font height in points that you want:

<ESC>

(S n V

To select font height for the secondary font, send this command:

<ESC>

)S n V

Style

Styledefineswhether your text isprinted in italicsor upright,the way these words are. Send this command to select the style you want for the primary font:

<ESC>

(S n S

in which for n you

enter

Oif you want normal upright text, or 1 if you want italics.

To select styleforthesecondaryfont,just reversethe parenthesisandusethe same n numbers:

<ESC>

)S n S

Remember that styleisarelatively low-priority attribute. If a particular font satisfiesallhigher priority attributes butdoesn’tcome inthestyleyou want, you’ll get that font without your style.

Stroke weight

The weight of a font defines how lightly or boldly it prints.

You can be flexible aboutstrokeweight. The following command gives you arange of 15degrees ofboldness, though not many fontsexploit that range.

Send thiscommand toselecta primary font with yourdesired strokeweight:

<ESC>

(S n B

in which you replace n with a number from –7 (meaning light) to +7 (very bold). You need the negative sign to get the lighter weights. A weight of O (zero) produces medium print.

To selectthe strokeweightforthesecondaryfont,usethesamenumbers with this command:

<ESC>

)S n B

An incidental note: You will likely use optional fonts to give you boldface,

so probably don’t need to know this. But it’spossible to print bold without even havingabold fontintheprinter.Youjust printthetextyou wantinbold two times, with the overprint offset by 4 decipoints.

So you can use the command <ESC> &a n H to back up, you just need to knowthewidth indecipointsofwhatyouwanttooverprint.Inamonospacedpitch font like Courier that’s easy:just keep track of how many characters you print. In a proportionalfontyou’d keep track of the decipoints by using acharacter-width table.After backing up4 decipointslessthan thetotaltext width youjust print your text again.

Typeface

The lastattributeyou can give to characters is their typeface. The design of characters iswhat font designers often think of as the main determinant for

afont.But when you select a laser printer font, typeface sits atthebottomof

the list.

To assign the particular face you want for your primary font, send this command:

<ESC>

(S n T

For n enter one of the font code numbers from this table:

TYPEFACE Line printer

Pica Elite Courier

H-Gothic Roman L-Gothic

Script Prestige Caslon Orator Presentation Line Draw PC Line OCR Bar Code

n O(zero)

1(one) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

11 12 13 14 15

To assign a character face tothesecondary font,just flip the parenthesisand use the same n numbers:

<ESC>

)S M T

Example: Font attributes

Let’s put the last half dozen font attributes together in an example. Say we want to select a nice font — a small Line Printer — for the footnotes in a reportwe’vefinished.Let’smakeitoursecondary font,since’thebodyofour report is done in the primary font.

We’llgo withthedefaultsfororientationand symbolset.Butlet’sbespecific about the other attributes, and let’s remember to put them in priority order.

We decide on amonospacedof 16.66characters per inch andaheight ofjust seven points (footnotes should look smaller than our regular text). To keep it readable, we opt for the ordinary upright style and medium weight in the LinePrintertypeface.Oursequenceofindividual commandswould looklike this:

<ESC>

)S OP

<ESC>

)S 16.66H

<ESC>

)S 8.5V

<ESC>

)S OS

<ESC>

)S OB

<ESC>

)S OT

Since these font attributes all start with the same )s command-category prefix, let put them all together in one command:

<ESC>

)S op 16.66h 8.5v os ObOT

The BASIC statement we could send to select our desired font would look like this:

100 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“)

sopl 6. 66h8 .5vOsObOT”

And assuning we have such a font in our printer, we’d get a font that looks

ke this sentence for our footnotes.

4.5.6 Underline

Underlining is printing feature, not a font attribute.

You can

underline in two ways: as a print feature, or with the – underline

character. If you backspace and use the underline character, however, you

often find the underline doesn’t come out the same length as your text.

The underline command works better. When you turn on the underline feature this way, the printer will underline all subsequent printable charac-

ters, including spaces.

Send this command to turn on the underlining mode:

<ESC> &d n D

in which for n you put

O(zero) to get fixed underline, or 3 to get floating underline.

And send this command to turn off the underline mode:

<ESC> &d@

4.5.7 How to print Escape sequences and control codes

You use both Escape sequences and control codes to print. So how do you print Escape sequences and control codes?

Butyou actually can print commands, and intwodifferentways.You would do this when you wantto see everything exactly as it is senttotheprinter— for example, to debug a string of text and commands that doesn’t print the way you think it should.

The Transparent print command prints the string of data that follows it without paying attention to any embedded Escape sequences or control

codes. Transparent print even prints Carriage Return codes withoutzapping

the”print position back to the left margin.

To useTransparent print,just putthiscommand immediatelyinfrontofyour print data:

<ESC> &p n X

For n you specify the number of bytes of data you want to print .

Display Functions, like the Transparent print command, prints Escape

sequences and control codes without actually executing them. But Display FunctionspaysattentiontoCarriage Return codes,sotextlooksmore likethe way it normally prints. Display Functions also prints commands as blanks, not as symbols.

Display Functionsactually involvestwo Escape sequences,oneto turn iton and another to turn itoff.To turn on Display Functions, send this command

just before the data you want displayed:

<ESC> Y

And to turn off Display Functions, send this command at the end of the displayed print data:

<ESC> Z

That Escape Z sequence itself prints as a blank followed by a Z.

4.5.8 Font control

The FontControlcommand has two main functions:defining a font’sstatus,

and deleting fonts.

You can make a font either permanent or temporary with the Font Control

command.Thishelpsyoucontrolwhich fontsyou delete,aspermanentfonts do not get deleted when you reset the system. The permanent or temporary

statusyou give to a font will apply only to the font you lastspecified,using

one of the font ID commands described above. When your printer’s memory gets stuffed with fonts, you can also use this command to delete some of them. You can only delete fonts you’ve downloaded,asinternalandcartridgefontsareneverdeleted.No textwillget

lost when you delete a font, even when that font is on an unprinted page in

the printer’s memory.

To control fonts you send this command:

<ESC>

*C r? F

For n enter one of the numbers from this table of functions:

O(zero)

1(one)

5 ~.

FUNCTION Delete all temporary and permanent fonts Delete all temporary fonts (another way to delete all temporary fonts is to send a reset command) Deletejust thefont withthemostrecently specified ID Delete just the last character of the font you have

downloaded

Make the current font ID temporary Make the current font ID permanent Make a temporary copy of the current font

A bit of explanation about that last function 6: When you give a font ID to anyfont you first need a temporary copy of that font in memory. That copy isalready there for downloaded fonts. But you willneed function 6 to create a temporary copy of an internal or cartridge font.

Here’s how to assign ID numbers to an internal or cartridge font. You first

selectthefont,then send the Font ID command to give itan ID number, and finally copy the font into memory with FontControlfunction6.If you want thatcopyto stayinRAM when youreset theprinter,youconcludebysending Font Control function 5.

4.5.9 Example: Controlling fonts

Let see how those last few commands work. translated into BASIC.

Pretendyouwanttomakeashorttestwith yourcurrent font(itdoesn’tmatter whatitis):you wanttoprintwhat’sinASCIItable positions 128through 130. There’s nothing there in your normal Roman-8 symbol set, but some other

sets keep control codes or international characters there.

Assuming you like what you see printed from those ASCII positions, you then want to make that current font permanent. Finally, you also want to dump all the temporary fonts from printer memory to make room for some graphics you’ll be printing.

Let’s start with a reset and an underlined heading for your test print:

100 LPRINT CHR$(27);“E”; 110 LPRINT CHR$(27);“&dOD” : 120 LPRINT “Underlined heading for test print

of ASCII 128 130“; 130 LPRINT CHR$(27);“&d@” 140 LPRINT CHR$(27);“&p3x” : 150 LPRINT CHR$ (128);CHR$ (129);CHR$ (130); 160 LPRINT CHR$ (12); 170 LPRINT CHR$ (27):“*C5flF”;

Line 100isjust the<ESC> E reset command. Lines 110and 130turn on and off the underline feature.

Line 140 turns on transparent printing, which forces printing even for normally unprintable control codes.The three bytes you wantto print are in line 150.To see what’s there, you send a form feed command in line 160.

And finally,line 170 uses thefontcontrolcommand tomakethecurrent font permanent and then delete all temporary fonts.

4.5.10 Example: Assigning font numbers

Now let’s do a program in BASIC. First we’ll assign font numbers to the Courier and Line Printer resident fonts and to a cartridge font, IBM PC Courier. Then we’ll print samples of each font.

100 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“(8U” ;

110 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“

(sOP1Ohl2vOsOb3T” ;

120 LPRINT CHR$ (15); 130 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“*cID”;

140 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“*c6F”; 150 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“(8U” ; 160 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“(sOp16.66h7vOsObOT” ; 170 LPRINT CHR$ (15); 180 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“*c2D”; 190 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“*c6F”;

200 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“(1OU”; 210 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“(sOp10h12vOsOb3T” ; 220 LPRINT CHR$(15) ; 230 LPRINT CHR$ (27):“*c3D”;

240 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“*c6F”; 250 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“lX”; 260 LPRINT “Font 1 Resident Courier” 270 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“(2X”; 280 LPRINT “Font 2 - Resident Line Printer” 290 LPRINT CHR$(27);’’(3X”; 300 LPRINT “Font 3

Cartridge PC Courier” 310 LPRINT CHR$ (27);“(lX”; 320 LPRINT CHR$(12)

Line 100and llOcallstheintemal Courier font and line 120makes itthe primary font. Line 130 gives it font ID number I, and line 140 makes it temporary.

Lines 150through 190do the same thing forthe Line Printer font, andlines 200 through 240forthecartridge font. Notice thatthecartridge fonthasthe IBM symbol setcode 10U.

Lines 250through 300printout samples ofthethree fonts. Finally, line310

resets thedefaultto ourintemal Courierfont, andline320 performsthe final form feed to print the page.

4.6 USING YOUR OWN FONTS

4.6.1 Font design is tedious

A warning: font design is an art. Don’t expect to turn out professionallooking fonts in a few hours.

Sometimes, though, you have to build your own typeface, even ifyou don’t work with a company in the font-selling business. You may, for example, want to print your own customized company logo. It means building up characters within a cell or grid, perhaps 50 dots high and 35 wide — lots of dots.

Becausedefiningyourown typefaceissotedious,make sureyou’vechecked out as many downloadable fonts as you can find from font development companies.

Thenexthandiestwaytodo thejob is to askaround,maybewhere youbought your LaserPrinter 4111,to see if you can get one of the font-creating or fonteditingutilityprogramsnowonthemarket. FonrGenIV+ isone. Keepaneye out, too, for new word processing tools that might save you the trouble of painstakingly figuring out details like kerning.

Even with aids like these, building a custom font is an intricate process. It calls for the creation of a family of up to 200 characters sharing a common design and proportional scheme, and that’sjust for one type size. No mean feat.

4.6.2 How to download your own fonts

Characters that you define and store yourself are called “user-defined” characters. Let assumeyoualreadyknow what text isto be inyourcustom font, and have designed itstype’face,weight, width and style. Once you’ve created your own characters. you’ll need to download them to your laser printer.

The process of downloading a font you’ve designed yourself is somewhat

detailed.To download your font, you follow the following steps:

1) assign a font ID number to your font,

2) download a font header,

3) identify the position of each character to be downloaded,

4) send a character descriptor and bit map for each character,

5) specify whether the file is to be permanent or temporary.

1)Assigning afont ID toyourfont

Toassignan ID to yourfont, you sendthiscommand (describedabove under “AssigningfontIDnumbers”) withan IDnumber fern betweenOand 32767:

<ESC> *c n D

Before sending that command though, check whether the ID number is alreadyallocatedtoanother font.Ifitis,thatexistingfontwillbedeletedwith the next command.

2) Downloading a headerfor yourfont

Even if the printer doesn’t have enough memory to create your font, it will delete any existing font with the same ID number when you download the headerfor your font.

A font’s header isthe list of its attributes, which your printer uses to select that font. Each font header, 26 bytes long, is stored at the front of the font. You send a font header command to your printerjust before you download the font’s characters.

The header command looks like this:

<ESC>

)S n W

and must be followed immediately by the data describing the font’s at-

tributes.The n value istheactualnumber ofbytesof descriptiondata,almost

always26. Note: unlikeothercommands, you mustenter theASCII symbols 2 and6 here, not the number 26.

Here’s a typical font header command:

<ESC>)s26WO<SUB>OIOOO<RS>O<RS>O2OOl<FF>OdOaOOOO<ETX>

Aside from the actual command at the front, the rest looks like gobbledygook? But there’s 26 bytes there, each one an ASCII character, each one specifying a particular font attribute. (The enclosed items with brackets are single ASCII characters that happen to be control codes.)

Each byte in the header is a number, which you send as whatever symbol happenstobestoredatthatnumeric positionintheASCIItable.Codingsome of these numbers istricky, however, and we recommend you ask your Star Micronics dealer to help you build your fontheader. To get you started,the table below shows what each of those bytes means:

BYTE

o-1

2 3 4-5 6-7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14-15 16-17

18-19 20-22 23 24 25

MEANING header length blank font size blank baseline position for characters blank cell width blank cell height orientation spacing symbol set pitch line spacing blank style stroke weight typeface

P e c y f

Before you download each character you have totellthe printer where in its font table to put it. You indicate where by sending this command:

<ESC>

*C n E

For n you put the decimal number, between Oand 255, of the position inthe

font table where you want your character stored.

Your printer’s font table isjust like the ASCII table. Before you send each character, sayg, you have to saywhereyouwantto putit.In theASCII table, g is at decimal position 103.So you send this command:

<ESC>

*C 103E

And immediately after it you send the bits that make up the character g.

D e c y f

The next step is to describe each of your characters, “mapping” where you

want each dot to go. Send this command before each character:

<ESC>

(S n W

For Hyou enter the number of bytes you’ll be sending after this command, to describe and map your character. Sixteen bytes are needed for the description; the bit-map takes as many bytes as you’ve put into each character cell — perhaps two or three hundred bytes.

As with the font header, each byte in the character description isa number, sent as the symbol at that position in the ASCII table. Coding character descriptions is tricky too, so again we recommend you ask your Star Micronics dealer for help. The table below shows what the bytes in the

character description mean:

BYTE o

1 2 3 4 5 6-7

8-9

10-11 12-13 14-15

MEANING description length blank always 14 always 1 orientation blank left offset (blank space to left of character) top offset (blank space above character) character width character height print position travel (proportional spacing only)

Thebit mapof thecharacter is just the patternofdotsinthe character, starting

at the top left of itscell. You work your way across the cell and down to the

bottom right, giving each dot a value of Oif it’s not to be printed and 1if it

is. Then you group those dots as 8-bit bytes.

P t

The last step indownloading yourown fontis to makethefontpermanent or temporary, using the Font Control command described earlier. The command <ESC> *c 4 F will allow the font to be erased when you reset the printer. But the command <ESC>*C5 F will keep your font available even after you reset the printer.

R G

The Star LaserPrinter 4111offers raster graphics (sometimes called “bitmapped graphics”), which specify each dot in a graphics pattern. Be aware, though, that adding graphic elements always slows up printing with laser printers.

The following stepsshouldbe performed (in theordershown)when printing raster graphics:

1) Define the resolution

2) Set the orientation of the graphic image

3) Issue the command to start graphics

4) Issue the command to set the compression technique (if any) of the graphical data

5) Send the commands which transfer the graphics data

6) Send the command to end graphics.

D r

Before graphics are sent to the printer, the resolution must be set. This is achieved using the following command:

<ESC> *t

77R

Ifthe valueofn isgreaterthan 150,theresolutionof thefinalgraphics image willbe 300dotsper inch (dpi); ifn is from 101to 150,theresolution will be

150dpi;‘ifn is from 76 to 100,the resolution will be 100dpi; and ifn is75 or less, the resolution will be 75 dpi. The default resolution is 75 dots per inch. After graphics have started, the printer will ignore any resolution command until itreceives the command to end graphics.

o g i

To settheorientationofthegraphicimage, transmitthefollowing command:

<ESC> *r n F

where n can take a value of either Oor 3. When the value of n is O,raster graphicsprintingwilltake place inthelogicalpageorientation, andwhenthe valueof n is 3,rastergraphics willbe printed along the width of thephysical

page, regardless of the logical page orientation.

I c s g

The command to start graphics must be transmitted next. The command is:

<ESC> *r n A

wheren cantake avalueofeither Oor 1.IfyouenterO,themargin forgraphics willbesetat the left-mostprintableedgeofthe page (not thesameasthe left margin for text). But ifyouenter 1,the margin for graphics will be set atthe column of thecurrent print position, and your image will appear onlyto the right of that graphics margin.

I c c t

a g d

Three graphicdata compression formats are available for data transfer. The data compression format to be used is selected using the following com-

mand:

<ESC> *b n M

where n can take the value O, 1or 2. Any other value is interpreted as O.A full discussion of data compression technique is outside the scope of this manual, but a brief explanation of this command should be useful.

Where n = O,no encoding takes place, and a simple binary transfer takes place. Bit 7 of the first bytecorresponds to thefirstdot ina raster row, bit 6 to the second, and so on.

Where n = 1, run-length encoding takes place. This is a compression technique where the data is divided into pairs; the first byte of each pair serving as the repetition count for the data in the second pair. If the first byteofthe pair isequal to zero,thedatainthe secondbyteisnotrepeated.

Where n =

2, the data to follow is in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)

conforming to rev. 4.0 standards. The demands of space do not allow a detailed discussion of TIFF standards here, but briefly, TIFF files combine features of non-encoded and non-encoded files. Many proprietary graphics packages use TIFF encoding when storing and transmitting graphic data.

S c w t g d

When transferring raster graphics data, each line of raster data must be prefixed by the command:

<ESC> *b n W

wheren givesthenumberofdatabytestofollow(themaximum is255before anothersuchcommand issent).This data mustfollow thecompressionrules set in the previous command. For instance, a TIFF image interpreted in any way other than the TIFF format will produce very strange results! Repeat sending lines of graphics data, prefixed by the above command, until the whole image has been transmitted.

S c g

To signaltheendofgraphicdatatransmission,send thefollowingcommand:

<ESC> *r B

There are no parameters. The LaserPrinter 4111is now in text mode.

A pro,grainminghint:move your print position in dot increments whenever

you’re dealing with graphics. It’s easier than trying to calculate column-

widths or decipoints.

The Raster Heightcommand specifiesthe height in pixels of the nextraster

graphic (between the start graphics and stop graphics commands).

<ESC> *r n T

The valueof n mustbenon-negative;ifnecessary, itistruncated to the value

of (logical page length) - (y coordinate ofcursor). This command causes all

raster rows after the specified heightto beclipped (disregarded), even ifn =

O.It forced the cursor position to advance vertically by n rows, even if less

than n rows are transferred. The area maps to either opaque or transparent

depending on the source transparency mode.

The Raster Width command specifies the width in pixels of the next raster graphic.

<ESC> *r n S

The value ofn must be non-negative;ifnecessary it istruncatedto thevalue of (logical page width) - (x coordinate of cursor). It will clip all raster rows longerthan thespecifiedwidth,even ifn = O.Itwillpad any row shorterthan thespecifiedwidth with zeros.Theareamapsto eitheropaque ortransparent depending on the source transparency mode.

The default valueisthewidthorlengthof thelogicalpage, depending onthe orientation. The command is ignored when received between start and end raster graphics commands or if n is negative.

The Raster Y Offset command advances the verticalpositionand is ignored when not in the raster mode.

<ESC> *b n Y

If n isnegative or ifthenew position would exceed the current raster height or the page limit, it isignored.

P G

TheStarLaserPrinter4111alsoprintspa~rerngraphic~,whichprintslinesand patterned blocks. Print shops call lines of any thickness rules. A printed line in fact is a rectangulararea with one“skinny”dimension, fromone to manydots thick.We will use the word “rules” too, to avoid confusion with the lines used to measure pages.

You follow these three steps when you use rule and pattern graphics:

1) Define the dimensions you need.

2)Choosethegraphicspatternyou want to fill in those dimensions.

3) Print the pattern.

Remember to send the following rule or pattern commands in that order.

4 D r o p d

Definingthedimensions ofthe areayouwantto filljust meansindicatingthe

horizontaland vertical sizeofthepattern, or therule’s length and thickness.

You can indicate dimensions in either dots or decipoints (tenths of a point).

At 300 dotsor 720 decipoints to the inch, decipoint measurements are more

accurate.Theprinterconvertsdecipointvaluesintodots,using2.4decipoints

tothedot.Itroundsupfractionstothenextinteger.So 1225decipointswould

work out to 510.4 dots, and the printer rounds this up to

511dots.

Your dimension commands specify an area to the right and down from the currentprintposition. Ifyoudefine an area larger than thepage,yourprinter will accept thecommand. It will,however, cut off your pattern or rule at the boundaries of the page’s printable area.

When the printer finishes its print “map” of your rule or pattern, the print position automatically returns to the spot from which you started. That means, for instance, that you can make a lightly shaded rectangle and then startprintingtext right over it. This kind of box can be useful for settingoff particular information from the main body of your text.

Horizontally,youcanspecifytherule lengthorhorizontalpattern sizeindots with this command:

<ESC>

*C n A

in which for n you enter how many dotsacrossthepage youwanttheruleor pattern to be.

Alternatively, to specify the horizontal dimension for a rule or pattern in decipoints, you can print this command:

<ESC>

*C n H

in which n is the horizontal rule or pattern size in decipoints,

Vertically, you can indicate the size of your rule or pattern in dots with this

command:

<ESC>

*C n B

inwhich n isthenumberofdotsdefining thethicknessoftheruleorthedepth

of the pattern.

Alternatively, to show the vertical dimension in decipoints, you send this command:

<ESC> *c n V

in which n is thenumberofdecipoints intherule’sthicknessor thepattern’s vertical length.

4 C a p a r o p

You need the next five commands to choose and printtheparticularpattern you want to fillyour defined area. These commands work together.

With thePrintPatterncommand (which actually comes second)youspecify whetheryouwant to fillyourrectangulararea with a solidblack rule,a finely dottedgray-scale pattern,ora predefine linearpattern.AndwiththeSpecify Pattern command you can indicatewhich

particular dotted or linear pattern

you want. You always send the Specify Pattern command before the Print Pattern command, even if you want a solid black rule.

To indicate the particular pattern you want, send the following command. The general meaning ofthen valueyou enter actually depends on the command you put after this:

<ESC>

*C n G

If you want a solid black rule itdoesn’tmatter what you put in for

n, as the

printer ignores it.

Ifyouwant a 1-scale dotted pattern,fern youenterhere apercentage number from 1to 100indicatingthedensitywith which youwantthe boxfilled,from light to solid. Your n percentage will correspond to one of the eight grayscale densities in the chart below.

1- 2%0

3-10 Yo

11 -20 0/0

36-55 0/0

81 -99 0/0

1fyou want a linear pattern, for Hyou enter here a pattern number between

56-80 ~0

I and 6 inclusive. identifying one of the linear patterns below.

You always send the following Print Pattern command after a Specify Pattern command. This Print Pattern command identifies whether the area youhavedefinedisto befilledwitharule,dotted gray-scalepattern,orlinear pattern:

<ESC>

*C n P

For n enter a value from the following table. (If you select a linear pattern here, but a dotted pattern in the previous Specify Pattern command, the printer will ignore this Print Pattern command.)

n Value Pattern O(zero) solid black

1 solid (opaque) white

‘2

shaded fill (as selected with <ESC> *c n G)

3 cross-hatched fill (as selected with<ESC> *cn G)

5 currentpatternfill(asselectedwith<ESC> *vn T)

If n = 5 has been selected, you will need the following command.

<ESC>

* n T

Thiscommand selectsthecurrentpattern typetobeappliedto source images (not rectangular areas) before printing.

17Value Pattern O(zero)

Solid black

1 Solid white

Currently defined shading pattern

4 Currently defined cross-hatched pattern

Fern = 2or3,thepattern definedbythemostrecent <ESC> *cn Gcommand is used. To change the pattern, a new <ESC> *c n G and a new <ESC> *V

n T command are needed.

The following two commands control “transparency”, whether or notwhite sections of an image block out black pixels that are already in place.

<ESC>

‘ n N

Thisselectsthesourcetransparency mode.whether white areasof thesource image should be treated as transparent (and do not “white-out” black pixels they cover) or opaque (in which case they white-out black pixels). Set n to Ofor the transparent mode and to 1 for the opaque mode.

<ESC>

* ? O

Thisselectsthepattern transparency mode,similarlyto theabove command, whether the current pattern should be treated as transparent or opaque.

Set n to Ofor the transparent mode and to 1 for the opaque mode.

4 E P g

To specify a block five incheswideyoucould useahorizontaldimension of

1500dots (5 inches times 300 dots). That command would look like this:

<ESC>

“C 1500A

To print that area with a 25 percent gray-scale pattern. the commands you

send would be:

<ESC> *C25G

<ESC>

*C 2p

Butto print an area filled with the horizontal bar pattern, the commands you send would be:

<ESC>

*C 1G

<ESC>

*C 3P

(You could combine these commands as <ESC> *c lg 3P.)

Star Micronics LaserPrinter 4III Applications Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual