Re: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
Hi I don't know much about PCL, but I know this: PCL laser printers usually build a whole page in memory and then print it to paper. They normally have a decent amount of memory. Especially older ink jet printers like yours only have a small buffer, so the page has to be delivered in bands (I think). That's probably what causes your problems. Maybe the PCL renderer would have to be changed so it can output a page as a sequence of bands. To visualize, see here: +-+ | Band 1 | +-+ | Band 2 | +-+ | Band 4 | +-+ | etc.| +-+ | | +-+ I think this is really what messes up your headers and footers. On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:32:48 -0400 avespa wrote: Question - I am testing a PCL generated file on an HP DeskJet 400 Printer, circa 1995 with Windows 95. I am seeing rather funky behavior, with the headers and footers being messed up (it looks like a few of the lines were written and then written over - perhaps a page break issue in our XSL)- our XSL is quite heavy and complex, so I am not sure where to start. I am wondering if I need to take the approach of looking at our XSL and seeing where it can be tuned or tweaked to change this behavior, or do I need to go to the PCL itself? I'm wondering if someone could nudge me in a certain direction? The output looks fairly decent on an HP8000 or HP820. I called HP and they weren't much help. Thanks for any help or input, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freundliche Grüsse OUTLINE AG Jeremias Märki mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postfach 3954 - Rhynauerstr. 15 - CH-6002 Luzern Fon +41 (41) 317 2020 - Fax +41 (41) 317 2029 Internet http://www.outline.ch - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
Interesting how might I go about testing this? Could I change the renderer and how would I do it? Could I test this by re-arranging PCL code in the document I produce? I render an XML stream into a PCL document, then I send it to the printer in a separate step. How could I 'band' this? -Tony -Original Message- From: Jeremias Maerki To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 9/13/01 2:34 AM Subject: Re: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Hi I don't know much about PCL, but I know this: PCL laser printers usually build a whole page in memory and then print it to paper. They normally have a decent amount of memory. Especially older ink jet printers like yours only have a small buffer, so the page has to be delivered in bands (I think). That's probably what causes your problems. Maybe the PCL renderer would have to be changed so it can output a page as a sequence of bands. To visualize, see here: +-+ | Band 1 | +-+ | Band 2 | +-+ | Band 4 | +-+ | etc.| +-+ | | +-+ I think this is really what messes up your headers and footers. On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:32:48 -0400 avespa wrote: Question - I am testing a PCL generated file on an HP DeskJet 400 Printer, circa 1995 with Windows 95. I am seeing rather funky behavior, with the headers and footers being messed up (it looks like a few of the lines were written and then written over - perhaps a page break issue in our XSL)- our XSL is quite heavy and complex, so I am not sure where to start. I am wondering if I need to take the approach of looking at our XSL and seeing where it can be tuned or tweaked to change this behavior, or do I need to go to the PCL itself? I'm wondering if someone could nudge me in a certain direction? The output looks fairly decent on an HP8000 or HP820. I called HP and they weren't much help. Thanks for any help or input, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freundliche Grüsse OUTLINE AG Jeremias Märki mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postfach 3954 - Rhynauerstr. 15 - CH-6002 Luzern Fon +41 (41) 317 2020 - Fax +41 (41) 317 2029 Internet http://www.outline.ch - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
I've had a quick look at the HP website. Your DJ 400 is a PCL 3 printer. Art Welch said the PCL renderer produces PCL5, so this might actually be the real problem. Concerning my comment about banding, unfortunately, I haven't found any information at the HP website. On Thu, 13 Sep 2001 08:44:55 -0400 avespa wrote: Interesting how might I go about testing this? Could I change the renderer and how would I do it? Could I test this by re-arranging PCL code in the document I produce? I render an XML stream into a PCL document, then I send it to the printer in a separate step. How could I 'band' this? -Tony -Original Message- From: Jeremias Maerki To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 9/13/01 2:34 AM Subject: Re: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Hi I don't know much about PCL, but I know this: PCL laser printers usually build a whole page in memory and then print it to paper. They normally have a decent amount of memory. Especially older ink jet printers like yours only have a small buffer, so the page has to be delivered in bands (I think). That's probably what causes your problems. Maybe the PCL renderer would have to be changed so it can output a page as a sequence of bands. To visualize, see here: +-+ | Band 1 | +-+ | Band 2 | +-+ | Band 4 | +-+ | etc.| +-+ | | +-+ I think this is really what messes up your headers and footers. On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:32:48 -0400 avespa wrote: Question - I am testing a PCL generated file on an HP DeskJet 400 Printer, circa 1995 with Windows 95. I am seeing rather funky behavior, with the headers and footers being messed up (it looks like a few of the lines were written and then written over - perhaps a page break issue in our XSL)- our XSL is quite heavy and complex, so I am not sure where to start. I am wondering if I need to take the approach of looking at our XSL and seeing where it can be tuned or tweaked to change this behavior, or do I need to go to the PCL itself? I'm wondering if someone could nudge me in a certain direction? The output looks fairly decent on an HP8000 or HP820. I called HP and they weren't much help. Thanks for any help or input, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freundliche Grüsse OUTLINE AG Jeremias Märki mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postfach 3954 - Rhynauerstr. 15 - CH-6002 Luzern Fon +41 (41) 317 2020 - Fax +41 (41) 317 2029 Internet http://www.outline.ch - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freundliche Grüsse OUTLINE AG Jeremias Märki mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postfach 3954 - Rhynauerstr. 15 - CH-6002 Luzern Fon +41 (41) 317 2020 - Fax +41 (41) 317 2029 Internet http://www.outline.ch - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
I think that everything that has been said is correct. However, I think that banding would only come into play for graphic elements. It has been a very long time since I last coded for an old DeskJet (or any DeskJet for that matter - the last ones being the original DeskJet and the DeskJet Plus). IIRC since the DeskJets have a very small buffer, everything needs to be sent to the printer in the order that it will be printed. On a Laser printer generally the whole page is produced in printer memory and then printed. So on a laser printer things can be sent for a page in any order. Perhaps the newer DeskJets are endowed with bigger buffers - and enhanced PCL support. How did the text print? I was concerned that even if the PCL could be made to print properly. The printer would be unable to use the desired fonts. It may be possible to modify the PCLRenderer to create a DeskJetRenderer by using a buffer in the renderer to sort everything on the page into the proper order. Graphic banding could also be done - but this is nontrivial. You may want to take a peek at the TXTRenderer as this uses a buffer to order the output (it also fills as necessary). If it is just an ordering problem. Then perhaps an intermediate renderer could be added that would do the sorting and then call the PCLRenderer (for non-graphic stuff anyway). I do not know if this will be any help. My memory of DeskJet programming is quite foggy. I hope that what I have said is mostly correct. Art -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 9:45 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Correct, it is rendered as PCL 5, but it seems almost all of the Deskjets only go up to PCL 3. I have a Deskjet 820 that has a pretty good result from the same document. HP told me that the older printers can't adapt as well as the newer ones to the more complex PCL. -Tony -Original Message- From: Jeremias Maerki [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 9:21 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 I've had a quick look at the HP website. Your DJ 400 is a PCL 3 printer. Art Welch said the PCL renderer produces PCL5, so this might actually be the real problem. Concerning my comment about banding, unfortunately, I haven't found any information at the HP website. On Thu, 13 Sep 2001 08:44:55 -0400 avespa wrote: Interesting how might I go about testing this? Could I change the renderer and how would I do it? Could I test this by re-arranging PCL code in the document I produce? I render an XML stream into a PCL document, then I send it to the printer in a separate step. How could I 'band' this? -Tony -Original Message- From: Jeremias Maerki To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 9/13/01 2:34 AM Subject: Re: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Hi I don't know much about PCL, but I know this: PCL laser printers usually build a whole page in memory and then print it to paper. They normally have a decent amount of memory. Especially older ink jet printers like yours only have a small buffer, so the page has to be delivered in bands (I think). That's probably what causes your problems. Maybe the PCL renderer would have to be changed so it can output a page as a sequence of bands. To visualize, see here: +-+ | Band 1 | +-+ | Band 2 | +-+ | Band 4 | +-+ | etc.| +-+ | | +-+ I think this is really what messes up your headers and footers. On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:32:48 -0400 avespa wrote: Question - I am testing a PCL generated file on an HP DeskJet 400 Printer, circa 1995 with Windows 95. I am seeing rather funky behavior, with the headers and footers being messed up (it looks like a few of the lines were written and then written over - perhaps a page break issue in our XSL)- our XSL is quite heavy and complex, so I am not sure where to start. I am wondering if I need to take the approach of looking at our XSL and seeing where it can be tuned or tweaked to change this behavior, or do I need to go to the PCL itself? I'm wondering if someone could nudge me in a certain direction? The output looks fairly decent on an HP8000 or HP820. I called HP and they weren't much help. Thanks for any help or input, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freundliche Grüsse OUTLINE AG Jeremias Märki mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postfach 3954 - Rhynauerstr. 15 - CH-6002 Luzern Fon +41 (41) 317 2020 - Fax +41 (41) 317 2029 Internet http://www.outline.ch - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED
RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
Very interesting and helpful information. My understanding was that the renderer would render the page as it is laid out in the XSL file, and since the header is near the top (with text and graphics) I find it odd that it is rendered and appears at the bottom of the page. The text itself looks like it is in a much smaller font, but the sizes on the page on relative to each other. My main concern now is getting things to appear in the proper order - either with or without an image. If I take out the header portion, things seem to work better. Thanks again for the help, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
Another thought... I am not sure if it has been suggested before, but perhaps it may be better (easier) to just have a stylesheet generate plain text and not use FOP at all. We have done this for some of our more simple reports (that do not need to look pretty). This has the added benefit of processing much faster (in our case anyway). You may even be able to add some extension functions to your XSLT processor to enhance the plain text output somewhat. Art -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Very interesting and helpful information. My understanding was that the renderer would render the page as it is laid out in the XSL file, and since the header is near the top (with text and graphics) I find it odd that it is rendered and appears at the bottom of the page. The text itself looks like it is in a much smaller font, but the sizes on the page on relative to each other. My main concern now is getting things to appear in the proper order - either with or without an image. If I take out the header portion, things seem to work better. Thanks again for the help, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
Hrm...plain text might be ok if we could have a small image and some variable size text - any idea of I could use extensions for this? -Original Message- From: Art Welch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:58 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Another thought... I am not sure if it has been suggested before, but perhaps it may be better (easier) to just have a stylesheet generate plain text and not use FOP at all. We have done this for some of our more simple reports (that do not need to look pretty). This has the added benefit of processing much faster (in our case anyway). You may even be able to add some extension functions to your XSLT processor to enhance the plain text output somewhat. Art -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Very interesting and helpful information. My understanding was that the renderer would render the page as it is laid out in the XSL file, and since the header is near the top (with text and graphics) I find it odd that it is rendered and appears at the bottom of the page. The text itself looks like it is in a much smaller font, but the sizes on the page on relative to each other. My main concern now is getting things to appear in the proper order - either with or without an image. If I take out the header portion, things seem to work better. Thanks again for the help, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
If you are using Xalan, it would be fairly simple to add an extension function to spit out hard coded PCL3 commands to print a small bitmap (IIRC just RLE of the pixels to print with some escape sequences) when called (could even be more sophisticated and generate the PCL dynamically). Also could do a function to output the PCL escape sequences to change the font/size as desired. Of course changing font spacing could greatly complicate the layout. Remember that without FOP the stylesheet would need to do all the layout (perhaps with assistance from extension functions). For our purposes, the reports we did this with were fairly simple tables. We did an extension function to pad the passed value to a certain width (number of characters) and just stacked the columns in the table. Worked quite well. We did not need anything fancy like font changes or images. Art -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 1:34 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Hrm...plain text might be ok if we could have a small image and some variable size text - any idea of I could use extensions for this? -Original Message- From: Art Welch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:58 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Another thought... I am not sure if it has been suggested before, but perhaps it may be better (easier) to just have a stylesheet generate plain text and not use FOP at all. We have done this for some of our more simple reports (that do not need to look pretty). This has the added benefit of processing much faster (in our case anyway). You may even be able to add some extension functions to your XSLT processor to enhance the plain text output somewhat. Art -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400 Very interesting and helpful information. My understanding was that the renderer would render the page as it is laid out in the XSL file, and since the header is near the top (with text and graphics) I find it odd that it is rendered and appears at the bottom of the page. The text itself looks like it is in a much smaller font, but the sizes on the page on relative to each other. My main concern now is getting things to appear in the proper order - either with or without an image. If I take out the header portion, things seem to work better. Thanks again for the help, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PCL Problems on HP Deskjet 400
Question - I am testing a PCL generated file on an HP DeskJet 400 Printer, circa 1995 with Windows 95. I am seeing rather funky behavior, with the headers and footers being messed up (it looks like a few of the lines were written and then written over - perhaps a page break issue in our XSL)- our XSL is quite heavy and complex, so I am not sure where to start. I am wondering if I need to take the approach of looking at our XSL and seeing where it can be tuned or tweaked to change this behavior, or do I need to go to the PCL itself? I'm wondering if someone could nudge me in a certain direction? The output looks fairly decent on an HP8000 or HP820. I called HP and they weren't much help. Thanks for any help or input, Tony - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
