A character must be included in the specified font character set and listed on the specified code page
before it can be printed.
Font Character Set
Afont character set contains the characters of a single type family, typeface, and type size. In addition, a
font character set specifies character properties and printing attributes.
Characters, Character Properties, and Printing Attributes: Characters are the letters, numerals,
punctuation marks, or other symbols of a font.
Character properties describe how a character is positioned relative to the characters around it. Some
character properties include the following:
vThe baseline of a character, showing its alignment on the writing line
vThe dimensions of space in which the character is printed
vThe position of the character within that space
vThe identifier of the character (the character ID or graphic character ID)
Each character is assigned a character ID; for example, the character A(uppercase A) is assigned the
character ID LA020000.
The purpose of a character ID is to distinguish the character from other, similar characters. For
example, the following characters look similar; however, they are different and are assigned different
character IDs:
Minus sign (−)
Character ID SA000000
Hyphen (-)
Character ID SP100000
Em dash (—)
Character ID SM900000
The printing attributes define how the font character set will be printed. Some printing attributes include
rotation of characters, maximum ascender, and point size.
Code Page
Acode page maps each character of text to the characters in a font character set. Figure 63on page 173
shows how a code page maps text to the characters in a font character set. As you enter your text at a
computer terminal, each keyboard character is translated into a code point. When the text is printed, each
code point is matched to a character ID on the code page you specified. The character ID is then matched
to the image of the character in the font character set you specified. The image in the character set is the
image that is printed.
FontCharacter Set
Character Shapes CharacterProperti es PrintingAttributes
Baseline
Position
Character ID
Character rotation
Maximum ascender
Point size
Figure62. Composition of a Font Character Set
172 Printer Information