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From: matt@EECS.NWU.EDU (Matt Larson)
Newsgroups: comp.laser-printers
Subject: Counting pages on a HPLJ II
Message-ID: <9104171649.AA25809@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU>
Date: 17 Apr 91 15:00:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: Academic Computing and Network Services, Northwestern University
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Approved: laser-lovers@brillig.umd.edu

I am interested in writing a filter that can count the number of pages
printed to an HPLJ II.  The input stream could be plain text or the HP
graphics language.  Counting pages of text is easy; counting pages of
graphics (for example, output from Ghostscript, gnuplot, dvijep, etc.)
is the part that has me stumped.

Is there a sequence that always means, ``End of the page; print it''?
I thought that's what the formfeed character (ASCII 12) did.  I tried
counting formfeed characters, but that doesn't seem to work: there are
way too many.  My current guess is that the formfeed character really
means what I think it means, but that it is also possible for
formfeeds to be part of other commands or in some sort of "quoted
string."  If I am on the right track, then the question is: How do I
tell the real formfeeds that mean end of page from the other ones?

I have tried looking through the manual, but it doesn't seem to be
specific enough.  If anyone has done this or knows how to do it, I
would appreciate the help.

Thanks a lot,

Matt Larson
--
Matt Larson, Distributed Systems Analyst
Academic Computing and Network Services, Northwestern University
matt@acns.nwu.edu   (708) 491-5366