The grid on the right side of Figure 6-5 can be used for either Letter Quality or proportional characters. For Letter Quality you do not use all the columns. See Table 63 for further information.

There is one restriction in designing characters. Dots in the same row cannot print in adjacent columns-there must be an empty dot position to the left and to the right of each dot that prints. This is true in draft, Letter Quality and proportional.

Defining Your Own Characters

The first step in defining characters is to place the dots on a grid just as you want them to print. The examples here, like the ones in the graphics section, use an X to represent each dot. Figure 6-6 shows a simple userdefined character on a draft grid.

Now translate the dot pattern created on the paper grid to a numeric format so you can send the information to the LQ2500. Every dot has an assigned value. Each vertical column (which has a maximum of 24 dots) is first divided into three groups of eight dots. Each group of eight dots is represented by one byte, which consists of eight bits. Hence, one bit represents each dot.

Figure 6-6.

user-defined character

Graphics User-defined Characters`

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