Editing *.GPD for old monochrome printer 1

[austim]

One of my printers is a Canon BJ 330, which has done trojan service in printing engineering drawings (A3 size) for me since I first bought it 10 years ago. Mechanically it is still sound, but I have recently come up against a difficulty.

Since I installed Windows 2000 pro (which has its own driver for the BJ 330) an intermittent problem has arisen when printing documents. Fairly frequently, the space between paragraphs is increased by an extra line feed. The same problem occurs when printing out Excel spreadsheets. Printing drawings has always been OK.

I have satisfied myself that the problem is due to the particular driver. (The BJ 330 emulates an IBM Proprinter XL24e - when I install it as if it is a genuine IBM, with the different driver, the problem disappears). Sadly, no driver update is available from MS or from Canon.

For most purposes, the IBM driver will do, but it does not offer the same maximum resolution that the BJ 330 does, and there may be other differences that I have not yet discovered.

The IBM *.GPD file is only 8kB, the BJ330 is 62! I presume that there must be some good reason for the difference, and I would like to enhance the IBM driver to give the full BJ330 capabilities if I can.

I believe that adding 360*360 resolution to the IBM *.GPD file would be simple. But to get to grips with any other differences I will need to learn something about editing *.GPD files. The BJ330 came with a pretty good programming manual, with which I was able to develop several different Printer description Files for MS Word (Dos version). But clearly Win2K is another matter altogether.

I would welcome all/any advice from others who know this business better than I (which must include most Tek-Tips members ). Particularly if there are any good web-sites offering info on the basic syntax of *.GPD files and how to go about editing.

 

[PAndersen]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/graphics/hh/graphics/nt5gpd_5u3r.asp

 

[austim]

Hi, PAndersen.

Thanks for your speedy response. I submitted my post, went out for a brief visit to our local Greek coffee shop, and when I got back, there was your link - absolutely brilliant.

I now have some serious homework to do

 

[austim]

HI, all.

I believe that I may have fixed my problem (again thanks to PAndersen).

I have modified my copy of CNBJ330.GPD, deleted and reinstalled the printer, and satisfactorily printed two documents which I had never been able to print before without the unwanted extra linefeeds between some paragraphs.


For the record, (just in case anyone else is also struggling with the combination of Win2K and a BJ300 or BJ330 printer) here is a copy of the edited section of my CNBJ330.GPD:

*% 14/11/02
*%The next 7 entries were copied from IBPXL24E.GPD

*CursorXAfterCR: AT_CURSOR_X_ORIGIN
*XMoveThreshold: *
*YMoveThreshold: *
*XMoveUnit: 120
*YMoveUnit: 180
*Command: CmdXMoveRelRight { *Cmd : &quot;<1B>d&quot; %l{(DestXRel / 6) } }
*Command: CmdYMoveRelDown { *Cmd : &quot;<1B>J&quot; %c[0,255]{max_repeat((DestYRel / 4) )} }



*IgnoreBlock
{
*%these are the original Canon BJ 330 entries which were replaced
*CursorXAfterCR: AT_CURSOR_X_ORIGIN
*YMoveAttributes: LIST(SEND_CR_FIRST,FAVOR_LF)
*MaxLineSpacing: 255
*XMoveThreshold: *
*XMoveUnit: 120
*Command: CmdXMoveRelRight { *Cmd : &quot;<1B>d&quot; %l{(DestXRel / 6) } }
*Command: CmdSetLineSpacing { *Cmd : &quot;<1B>3&quot; %c[0,255]{(LinefeedSpacing / 4) } }
}

*% End of 14/11/02 edit
*% Back to original BJ330 file