Control Codes | PcOS Series 150 | Programmer's Guide |
Rotated Print
Print Rotation Commands
To provide printing flexibility on preprinted and various size forms, rotated print capability is available in validation and receipt modes. Rotated print mode aligns the print in any of three 90 degree orientations.
In 90° and 270° rotated modes, the print data is first buffered by the printer, processed (rotated), and then printed. As a result, the print process is slightly delayed. In 180° mode, the print is simply inverted and mirrored.
Because the rotated 90° and 270° print buffer is limited to 1760 characters, the amount of rotated print is also limited. The printer can support a limit of 22 lines of rotated print with a maximum line length of 80 characters. The technique used by the Series 150 Printer is to receive all the print to be rotated and convert it into graphics. This requires buffer space for all possible characters in each print line. Each line has a fixed length buffer regardless of how much data is actually sent to the printer. The printer will space fill the buffer for each line to the maximum size. As a result, a short line of two characters will take as much buffer space as a long line.
To make the most efficient use of buffer space, the line length is predefined. The default line length is 80 characters, which leaves room for 22 lines. To allow longer lines to be printed, the line length can be changed; however, no more than 22 lines with no more than 128 characters per line are allowed. For example, if the line length is expanded to 128 characters per line, there is buffer space for 1760/128 or 13 lines.
Specifying the line length is also useful to determine where data is printed on forms. In rotated 90° and 270° mode, the print field can be extended to print the complete line length specified. Extending the line length is useful for printing forms such as checks where the form is fixed but the data can change. This mode is called line formatted mode. In line formatted mode, the line length is set not by the longest line entered but by the maximum line length. (Line lengths less than 80 will not print more than 22 lines, only the format will be affected).
The space between lines is controlled by a line spacing table. The table is defined by the rotated print line spacing ([ESC] u ...) command or by inserting [LF] or [ESC] J <n> commands in the rotated data. The [ESC] u command specifies the number of dots to be added between each printed line. Each line has an entry in the table. There is room for 22 lines in the table. The minimum spacing (and default) is one dot or 1/80 inch between lines which results in a total of 10 dots in a line or 10/80 inch (8 lines per inch).
The character cell is 7 x 9 with one dot of white space9 or a total cell size of 7 x 10. The cell is printed at 80 dots per inch. If three dots are added, there will be a total of four dots, and the cell will be 7 x 13. The following table specifies lines per inch for various numbers of inserted dots.
Number of dots added | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
Spacing specified | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
Cell size | 7 x 10 | 7 x 11 | 7 x 12 | 7 x 13 | 7 x 14 | 7 x 15 | 7 x 16 | 7 x 17 |
Line spacing (inches) | 0.125 | 0.1375 | 0.15 | 0.1625 | 0.175 | 0.1875 | 0.2 | 0.2125 |
Number lines per inch | 8 | 7.27 | 6.67 | 6.15 | 5.71 | 5.33 | 5.0 | 4.7 |
Table 12 Rotated print spacing
9Line graphic characters are 7 x 10 which allow touching characters as a default.
Page 40 | Rev G | 12/14/99 |
