Unlike draft characters, there are no restrictions on which dots can print. You can print a solid box of 360 (15x24) dots if you wish. This, coupled with the closer dot spacing, allows you to design characters with higher resolution. The drawback is speed. Normal letter quality characters print more slowly than draft characters; the same is true of the user-defined character set.

Proportional mode characters

Selecting the proportional character mode yields user-defined characters of the highest resolution. Characters can be designed on a grid which is 24 dots high by 37 dots wide. Horizontal dot spacing for proportional characters is l/360-inch-quite fine in- deed! And, like letter quality characters, there are no limits on dot placement. You can use all of the dot positions without restric- tion.

Mixing Print Styles

Each of the three user-defined character modes (draft, letter quality, and proportional) can be used in combination with most of the SQ-2000’s various print styles. For instance, italic, elite, and emphasized styles all work with user-defined characters. The characters you design will be altered to give each of these printing effects.

Mixing the three types of user-defined characters is not per- mitted. For example, you select the draft attribute and define some characters. Then you select proportional printing and define some more. In this case, the first character definitions will be destroyed. Only one type of character definition may be stored in RAM at any time.

If you define characters in one mode, then switch to another mode and select the user-defined character set, the command will be ignored and nothing will print. However, the user-defined characters definitions remain unaffected. If you switch back to the mode in which they were defined, you can then select and print them.

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