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PCL default left margin 2

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tgreer

Programmer
Oct 4, 2002
1,781
US
In the following code, I've added line-breaks for clarity.

Can someone explain why the small black rectangle starts 1/4" in from the left-hand edge of the page?

In other words, why does "Ec*p0X" position me "150 dots" in, instead of at 0?

Code:
Ec%-12345X@PJL JOB
@PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=PCL
EcE
Ec*t600R
Ec&u600D
Ec&l0O
Ec&l2A
Ec&l0S
Ec&l1X
Ec&l0E
Ec*p0x0Y
Ec*c0t5760x7680Y
Ec*p0x400Y
Ec*c300a4b0P
FF
EcE
Ec%-12345X@PJL EOJ
Ec%-12345X


Thomas D. Greer

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting
 
There is a .25inch or 150 dot (@600dpi) unprintable area on the left side of the sheet.

In other words, dot 0 is 1/4 inch from the left edge. That's the way it is.

Jim Asman
 
A coordinate of zero is relative to the logical page, not the physical page; the former takes account of the unprintable region on (most) LaserJet devices.

As Jim says, this is documented in the PCL5 Technical Reference manual.

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


Some of the downloads are quite hefty.

With PCL6 (aka PCL XL) the logical coordinate position (0,0) defaults to the physical top-left of the page; but this still won't help if the device has an unprintable region (i.e. it does not offer edge-to-edge printing).
Note that HP don't seem to make the PCL6 reference material as freely available as the PCL5 documentation.
 
The PDF found at that link doesn't return any results when I search it for "unprintable area".

So I'm supposing that any given device will have a different "unprintable area", and I will have to search on a device-by-device basis.

Thomas D. Greer

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting
 
Page down from the beginning. It's very early in the book, with "maps" for portrait and landscape pages.

You shouldn't have to look very hard to find it.


Jim Asman
 
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