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From: henry@ZOO.TORONTO.EDU (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.laser-printers
Subject: Re: Counting pages on a HPLJ II
Message-ID: <9104191550.AA03501@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU>
Date: 18 Apr 91 15:38:19 GMT
References: <9104171649.AA25809@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU>
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Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
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Approved: laser-lovers@brillig.umd.edu

In article <9104171649.AA25809@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU> matt@EECS.NWU.EDU (Matt Larson) writes:
>I am interested in writing a filter that can count the number of pages
>printed to an HPLJ II...
>Is there a sequence that always means, ``End of the page; print it''?

No.  In general, counting pages on a LaserJet is a royal pain.  Even for
text it is not simple, because things like changing the printer's line
spacing change how much text gets put on a single page.  You have to
essentially implement an interpreter for HP-PCL.

>... 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."

Correct; *any* binary data can show up in graphics sequences.  You really
have to understand the escape sequences to follow the structure of the
document.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry