User-defined Characters

Copying ROM Characters to RAM

After running the program, if you select the user-defined character set and try to print other characters, the only one that will print is your arrow. Since no other characters are in the printer’s user-defined RAM, there is nothing else to print. Other characters sent to the printer do not even print as spaces; it’s as if they were not sent at all.

In many cases, you will want to redefine only a few of the characters to suit your needs-the rest of the alphabet will work fine as it is. As you have seen, it is possible to switch back and forth, at will, between the normal character set and your user-defined character set. It is, however, rather inconvenient.

Therefore, your printer has a command that allows you to copy all of the standard characters from ROM to the user-defined character set.

The command format is as follows, where the value of n represents the font family:

E S C : 0 n 0

Note: This command cancels any user-defined characters you have already created. You must send this command to the printer before you define characters.

If you use this command at the beginning of a program, then define your special characters and select the user-defined set, you can print with the user-defined set as your normal character set. You never need to switch back and forth between sets.

4-28 Software and Graphics