To avoid having one program interfere with the printing modes of another, you can cancel a mode one of two ways:

•With a specific cancelling code, such as the ESCape "P" that we used above to cancel elite. Each mode has a cancelling code, which you can find in the discussion of the code and in Appendix B. Pica is an exception to this rule. To cancel pica, turn on elite.

•By resetting the printer, a method explained in the next section.

Resetting the Printer

Resetting your LX-80 cancels all modes that are turned on. You can reset the printer with one of two methods:

•Sending the reset code (Escape “a”)

•Turning the printer off and back on.

Either one of these methods returns the printer to what are called its defaults, which are the standard settings that are in effect every time you turn the printer on. The two effects of resetting the printer that you should be concerned with are: it returns the printing to single-strike pica, thus cancelling any other pitches or enhancements you may have turned on, and the current position of the print head becomes the top of page setting.

Some of our demonstration programs end with a reset code so that the commands from one program will not interfere with the commands in the next one. After you run a program with a reset code in it, remember to change the top of page setting before you begin printing full pages.

Pitch Comparison

Now that you have used three short programs to produce samples of the three main pitches, you can choose the pitch that you prefer or the one that best fits a particular printing job. Most people use either pica or elite for printing text and compressed for spreadsheets or other applications in which it is important to get the maximum number of characters on a line.

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