Star Micronics NX-15 user manual NLQcharacters

1.

105

reason, NLQ characters can contain up to 23 dots in the horizon- tal direction.

Fundamentally, the process to define and print downloaded NLQ characters is the same as for draft characters, except that you must supply about four times as much character data, and ‘you must design the character with the two passes of the print head in mind. There are small differences in the way the at- tribute information is processed also.

In the draft quality mode the attribute byte carries the descender data, and specifies the start and end printing col- umns. In the NLQ mode, the first bit also carries the descender data as with the draft characters, but the next three bits describe the character’s left space, and the last four bits describe the right space. Appropriate allocation of data in these seven bits lets you place the character where you like within the grid, with the restriction that the character must be at least 9 dots wide.

Use the grid in Figure 7-6 to help plot the data. Due to the two-pass process, NLQ characters can contain up to 16 dots ver- tically. ml to m23 are the data for the first pass, and m24 to m46 are the data for the second pass.

128

128

64		,,
64	I	1	I	I I
32	I			ASCII Code:

Descender:

Left space:

Right space:

MO = Descender * 128

+ (Left * 16) + Right

I

Figure 7-6.Use this grid (or one similarto it) to define your own

NLQcharacters.