Star Micronics NX-10 user manual Defining Proportional Characters

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Note that we didn’t have to re-enter the download characters, since they were already sent to the printer with the first pro- gram. They will stay with the printer until you download new characters to replace them or turn the printer off. Even the (ESC) “a” command, which initializes the printer, does not destroy the contents of download RAM.

DEFINING PROPORTIONAL CHARACTERS

Except for the actual width, defining characters for propor- tinal printing is exactly the same as defining normal width download characters. Characters can range from 5 to 11 dots wide. This means that characters can be as narrow as one-half the normal width.

Besides being able to specify the actual width of the character, this printer allows you to specify the position in the standard grid where the character will print. You must specify the dot column in which the printed character starts and the dot column in which the character ends. Why, you may ask, would

you want to define a character this way instead of merely defin- - ing the overall width of the character? Because this printer’s pro- portional character definitions can also be used to print normal

width characters, which are eleven dot columns wide. And by centering even the narrow characters in the complete grid they will look good even when you aren’t printing them proportional-

ly.

. The command format for proportional character definition is exactly the same as you have learned; the only difference is the attribute byte, m0. As you know,the first bit of m0 is used to specify whether the character is descender or not. The next three bits are used to specify the starting print column (accep- table values are 0 to 7). The last four bits specify the ending print column (acceptable values are 4 to 11). The minimum