Hello, folks. I'm wondering if anyone has any good, solid info
about downloading fonts to HP printers in DOS (and of course,
printing!). In particular, I'm trying to download some
downloadable fonts to a DeskJet 870 inkjet printer, and I'm
having a problem getting the printer to recognize them.
They appear to download properly, but for some reason, when I
tell the printer "use code no. 87, which I just downloaded", the
printer does not recognize that. I think it might be a problem
with the order in which I'm sending command codes to the printer.
Is there anyone out there who knows something about this? If so,
would you please send me an email at [EMAIL PROTECTED]?
Many tnx!
For those who are curious about this, here is some very
elementary info; if you;d like more info, email me and I'll be
happy to share what I know.
I've been using downloadable fonts quite successfully for years
with my HP Lazer Jet III. I use some fonts I bought from Elfring
Software (www.elfring.com). These are Laserjet fonts, but in
principle, the same concept applies to TrueType fonts (they're
downloaded to the printer too, after all!) and Deskjet fonts.
There's a 2-step process to do this:
1. I run a program I got from Elfring called "download". I
specify the name of a file (which contains the font I want), a
number I'll be using to identify the font, and a code that says
"this is the primary font" or "this is the secondary font".
2. I send the printer a bunch of command codes. These tell the
printer things like the number of the font I'm using, the left
margin, the character set, and so on.
HP developed this "command language" for its printers, and calls
it PCL, or Printer Command Language. The commands control how
the printer works--obviously, to use a printer, at some point
you have to tell it what to do, and these comands are how you do
that. The comands are very simple, and if you know how to use
them, you can do lots of neat things, at least on a laser
printer. (BTW, HP published a book called PCL5 Printer Language
Technical Reference Manual" that has most of this stuff.)
For example, there are commands that select bold, italic, or
normal letters, that select the size of the characters you are
using, that tell the printer whether the orientation it should
use is portrait or landscape (or reverse p. or l.), and so on.
These commands can be found on HP's web page (hp.com). Here is a
quick sampling of some of them (in the material below, "Ec" is
the escape character, formed by pressing down the ALT key and
then entering 0-2-7 on the right-hand keyboard):
Ec$l1O start (set) landscape mode
Ec$l3O start (set) reverse landscape mode
Ec(s1S start italics mode (for fonts that have italics)
Ec(s0S end italics mode
And (at least with a laser printer) you can do other neat stuff,
like drawing boxes and circles and shading and so on. For
example, to draw a box 1200 dots wide and 900 dots deep, you
would first enter the "anchoring" position on the page (I don;'t
have the command handy for that) and then enter these commands:
Ec*c1200A (sets area to 1200 dots wide)
Ec*c900B sets area to 900 dots deep
Ec*c10G fill with 10% gray
I've done this stuff, so I know it works.
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