CHAPTER 5

FORMA.TTING TEXT
Subjects covered in Chapter 5 include -
l The carriage return and line feed
l The amount of space between lines
l Moving to the next page
l The number of lines on a printed page
l Horizontal and vertical tabs
l Setting margins-left, right, top and bottom
l Centering and aligning
Chapter 4 showed us the basic techniques for using the
printer. Now we’re ready for the more advanced ones. We’ll
concentrate on changing the appearance of the page to suit
our needs.
LINES AND LINE SPACING
n Starting a new line
Up until now the only time we have thought about printing
on a new line is when we didn’t want it to happen. We learned
that putting a semicolon (;) at the end of a BASIC line will
not end the line of printing. So somehow, the computer tells
the printer when to end one line and start another.
There are two codes that are used to end one line and start
another. They are carriage return (CHR$( 13)) and line feed
(CHR$(lO)). Like the’escape codes, they have been given ab-
breviations which you’ll find many texts (including this one):
<CR> and < LF > . The codes are simple, but their action
is a little confusing (especially with BASIC). Let’s begin with
the carriage return. Each time the printer receives a CHR$( 13)