Star Micronics NX-15 user manual Definemacro, LPRINTCHR$27 ! Chrso Select normal pica

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Here is how the printer’s macro works. You dejlne a macro by telling the printer what normal control codes are to be included in the macro. Then you can use the macro any time that you want and the printer will do all the things that you included in the macro definition. You can include up to 16 codes in a single ‘macro. You can even use the macro to store a frequently used word or phrase. There are two control codes for the macro: one to define it, and one to use it. They are given in the Table 6-9.

	Table 6-9
	Macro instruction commands
Function	Control code
Definemacro	(ESC) “+” ... (codesyou include)..
	CHR$(30)
I.Jsemacro
	l(13SC”j““+” CHRM1)

To see how this works we can build a macro that will reset the printing style to normal, no matter what style it may be to start with. The following program will define a macro to do this.

10 LPRINT CHR$(27) ; “+”; 1Start macro

20LPRINT CHR.$(27) ; “h”; CHR$([”l) : ‘Big character off

30LPRINTCHR$(27) ;” !”: CHRS(O) : Select normal pica

AO LPRINT CHR$(27) ; “T”:	‘Super & subscripts
off

50LPRINT CHR$(27) ; “a”; CHRS(0) ; ‘ Left-al i.gnecl pr irlt i n.g

60 LPRINT CHR$(30)	‘ Znd rirdcro
def i r~i t-ion

As the comments in the program shown, we started to define the macro in line 10. Line 20 cancels big character printing. Line 30 sets normal pica, and this command also cancels propor- tional pitch, condensed print, expanded print, boldface, em- phasized, italics, and underlining. Line 40 cancels superscripts and subscripts, and line 50 sets left-justified printing. Then, line 60 ends the macro definition. This printer will remember this macro until the power is turned off or until a new macro is defin- ed. A macro can hold up to 16 bytes (characters) of information. The one that we defined contains eleven.

Now that you have defined a macro, let’s see how to use it.