Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!cs.umn.edu!uc!apctrc!voyager!zjdg11 From: zjdg11@hou.amoco.com (Jim Graham) Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: 8-bit chars in printing (WAS: Re: ALED goes to the wastebasket....) Message-ID: <1991Jun21.171136.10009@hou.amoco.com> Date: 21 Jun 91 17:11:36 GMT References: <3257@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <1991Jun18.172133.9891@hou.amoco.com> <3285@krafla.rhi.hi.is> Sender: news@hou.amoco.com Organization: Amoco Lines: 59 Tried to reply via e-mail, but it got bounced back...so...... In article <3285@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: >In article <1991Jun18.172133.9891@hou.amoco.com> zjdg11@hou.amoco.com >(Jim Graham) writes: >>I'm (eventually...as soon as I get more documentation into the code) going to >>post a program to alt.sources that will use a reduced fontsize and ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>interlineskip, combined with subscripting to produce very small output on ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>Epson-flavored dot-matrix printers. >Humm. I suppose that you are planning to define your own characters (on >the lower half) and down load them into the printer. Your characters will >be smaller than the original? > >Right? nope. it uses a combination of Elite and Compressed pitch, which makes for small letters, subscript mode, which makes for REALLY small letters, and a reduced interlineskip, which makes the rest of this mean something (after all, what good does it do to use small letters if a ``line'' still takes up the same amount of the page? I intercept any CR/LF or LF and instead, send the escape codes that generate a vertical skip of 18/180 inch. THEN, I send a CR to move the print head back to the left. What I'm wondering about is the fact that printers (my printer, at least) usually need to be told how to interpret 8-bit characters, since these are also used for printer control codes and such. My plans right now are just to treat this as any other escape sequence....if it just so happens that you don't have the same type printer that I do, you just use the configuration file to tell the program what your printer expects as a control sequence to tell it to do certain tasks. I would include something like ESCAPE_8_BIT_CHARS Only problem is, from what I gathered from this thread, doing that may in fact cause problems for a lot of people. then again, it may be just the thing they need it to do. The source code will (obviously) be there, so anyone that doesn't work for could hack around with it before compiling it, but my intent is to not force people into that (beyond the obvious things that you always have to do...edit the Makefile, config hdrs, etc.). --jim Standard disclaimer....These thoughts are mine, not my employer's. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Share and Enjoy! (Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, complaints division) 73, de n5ial Internet: zjdg11@hou.amoco.com or grahj@gagme.chi.il.us Amateur Radio: TCP/IP: jim@n5ial.ampr.org (44.72.47.193) Packet: BBS went QRT for good...still searching for new one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------