Mixing PJL and PCL 1

[tgreer]

Do PJL statements only work at the beginning/end of a document?

If I wanted to insert:

@PJL SET MEDIASOURCE=TRAY1

at various spots in the PCL document (specific pages), would that work? What is the syntax?



Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting

 

[jlasman]

In a word, no!

PJL commands "wrap" the PCL job.

If you want to switch trays in the middle of a PCL print job, then use the PCL command

<esc>&l#H

where the # is a numeral that represents the desired tray. See the PCL5 tech Reference.

Put it as the very first thing on the page to be printed from the new tray.

Jim Asman

 

[tgreer]

Bummer, that's what I thought. Tray pull is just one example. The eventual goal was to toggle between PostScript and PCL in a single job, inserting PostScript pages and setpagedevice calls as needed.



Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting

 

[UncleRick]

I believe you can move back and forth between PCL and PS using PJL on a per page basis in one job.

Would this not work, its not pretty and I'm not positive about the resets. Unfortunatly I don't have access to my notes right now.

<ESC>%-12345X@PJL<CR><LF>
@PJL JOB<CR><LF>
@PJL SET DUPLEX=ON<CR><LF>
@PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=PCL<CR><LF>
<ESC>Epage1<FF>page2<FF><ESC>E<CR><LF>
<ESC>%-12345X@PJL<CR><LF>
@PJL SET someother varible = some value<CR><LF>
@PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=POSTSCRIPT<CR><LF>
%%PS<your PS code here>
<ESC>%-12345X@PJL<CR><LF>
@PJL EOJ<CR><LF>
<ESC>%-12345X

 

[DansDadUK]

UncleRick

Your sample would work, but I think that this is just two JOBS concatenated; state changes in one would not effect the other (so you couldn't, for example, change input tray in the first, and expect this to still be effective in the second, which is what I understood was a requirement (from the original post)).

The reason for this is that the <ESC>%-12345X (Universal Exit Language) statement not only causes entry to be made to the PJL interpreter, it also does a reset to the power-on default settings.

 

[tgreer]

Exactly - the idea was to perform device-configuration commands for a PCL Page, using PostScript... a wishful thinking shortcut, since I know PostScript.

The answer of course, was to learn PCL.



Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting

 

[DansDadUK]

Thomas

Regarding learning PCL:

The following link provides a brief history of the PCL language, and (more importantly) links to the PCL Technical Reference manual, and also to other PCL5 & PJL manuals (in PDF format):

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=bpl04568

Some of them are quite hefty downloads.