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DEFINING YOUR OWN NLQ CHARACTERS
As you probablynoticed,NLQ charactersare printedby two passesof the printhead.Halfofthecharacters printedonthefirstpass,andtheremainder onthesecondpass.Thepaperisrolledup halfa dotheightinbetweenpasses to let the printhead print dotson the secondpass that overlapthe previous dots,b onler to fill in the spacesand producedenserchamctem.Addition- ally,the print head speed is halved,and the dots are printed at doublethe densityof draft characters.For this reason,NLQ charactemcan containup to 23 dots in the horizontaldirection.
Fundamentally,the processto defineandprintdownloadedNLQ character is the same as for draft characters,exceptthat you must supplyaboutfour timesasmuchcharacterdata,andyoumustdesignthecharacterwiththetwo passes of the print head in mind. There are small differenceswith the standardmode in the way the attributeinformationis processedalso.
In the draft qualitymode the attributebyte carriesthe descenderdata, and specifiesthe left spaceandthe characterwidth.In the NLQ mode,the first bit also carries the descenderdata, and the next three bits describe the character’sleft space as with the draft charactem,but the last four bits describethe right space.Appropriateallocationof data in these sevenbits lets you place the character where you like within the grid, with the restrictionthat the charactermust be at least 9 dots wide.
Usethe gridin
To makethe characterdataeasierto calculate,put the firstpass dotsinside theboxesonthegridwhenyouaredesigningyourcharacters,andthesecond pass dotson the lines.Rememberthat adjacentdotsmay not overlapon the samepass;in otherwords,if onedotis in a box,its adjacentdoton the same passmaynotbeon aline.Therefore,tomakesmoothcharactm, putthedots neededto overlapany spacesin a characterin the appropriateplacesin the secondpass grid.
If
Thedefiningprocessis thesameas fordraftcharacters,exceptthatyoumust selectNLQ mode, and you must define46 data. If you wish to print your NLQ characterswith the regularcharacterset, the remarks regardingthe
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