PCL Code Breakdown

[Jay1b]

Hi

I have been asked to make a few changes to some PCL code, but i am a little stuck and was wondering whether someone could help me please?

I have the following line, i was hoping someone could tell me what each does?

^[(s0p6v0s3b24580T

I've tried looking it up in the manual, but its not exactly easy to understand!

Thanks

Jay.

 

[UncleRick]

This is just a series of escape sequnces with the same group characture so it can be abreviated to what you see. It is for calling a font. It could also be written as

^[(s0P^[(s6V^[(s0S^[(s3B^[(s24580T

Does that make it easier to read?
^[ = escape = 0x1b

^[(s0P = fixed spaced font

^[(s6V = font hieght 6/72 of an inch(strange, pitch is usually used for fixed spaced fonts)

^[(s0S = Style (0=upright)

^[(s3B = Stroke weight (3=bold)

^[(s24580T = typeface (24580=Helvetica)

 

[jlasman]

^[(s6V has no effect if a fixed pitch font has been requested.

Similarly, the proportional Helvetica font won't be delivered for the same reason. You probably get Courier...

UNLESS there is a fixed pitch Helvetica font resident in the printer. Not impossible, but unlikely.

Jim Asman

 

[Buff1]

I don't think that's always true
consider
Ec(s0p10h12v0s0b0T"

or
Ec(s0p16.66h8.5v0s0b4148T"

Now for proportional fonts the h value(10h, 16.66h for example are ignored) since it's horizontally proportional depending on the character.

 

[Jay1b]

Thanks guys.

 

[DansDadUK]

Jim is correct in stating:
^[(s6V has no effect if a fixed pitch font has been requested
apart from the small exception noted by buff1, which is that both pitch and height are relevant to a fixed-pitch bitmap font; the height value will also still be stored in the font select table to provide a default value for the next proportionally-spaced font select.
(LinePrinter is the only bitmap font which is printer-resident on modern LaserJets and clones).

 

[Jay1b]

Hi

Can i ask one more question please?

I am trying enter a tab character into a barcode via a PCL escape sequence, what i have is below.

.PRINT '^[(s11p102h18vbs24680T' (q0)
.PRINT '^[*p+342x+448YW' 'Hello' \tab 'Goodbye'(q0)

The reason for this is:
I have a screen with 4 textboxes on it, If the user was going to manually enter data on these textboxes then they would type it in, press tab to move to the next box and then fill that in....etc.... I would like to be able to produce a barcode that can fill in each text box tabbing between them - with the user just scanning the one barcode.

Can anyone help me pls?

Thanks.

 

[jlasman]

You should be able to embed a tab into a barcode using Code128A symbology.

If that font isn't 128A, you may be out of luck.

Certainly 3of9 does NOT support tabs. What type of barcode is being used here?

In a PCL context, you could get a Code128 soft font and use that.

Jim Asman