PRINTing PCL commands and linefeeds

I'm almost certain that linefeeds are resulting from something as simple as PRINT CHAR(27):"E"

Is there a way to do this without causing a linefeed?

I'm almost certain that linefeeds are resulting from something as simple as PRINT CHAR(27):"E"

Is there a way to do this without causing a linefeed?

I'm almost certain that linefeeds are resulting from something as simple as PRINT CHAR(27):"E"

Is there a way to do this without causing a linefeed?

I'm almost certain that linefeeds are resulting from something as simple as PRINT CHAR(27):"E"

Is there a way to do this without causing a linefeed?

I should note that i'm on Unidata.

And I don't think that is working for me.

Here's the code I'm using:

And here's the result.

Using the two invoice items for comparison, it looks like like my "this line printed" is on the fourth line from the top of the page.

Hi Shawn,

SInce you're resetting the printer and sending a bunch of configuration commands, your cursor is probably still at the top left position of the page.  It's probably showing up where it is because of how the default page margins are set.  If you're expecting it to be a the top left printable position, look into the other page setup commands.

ESC&l0E would set the top margin to zero.

ESC&a0L would set the left margin to zero.

Though the "this line printed" string did not show up this time (maybe since it's at line '0'?), that worked.

That check number is now at the very top - exactly where I would expect it.

Thank you @Joe Goldthwaite!

You're welcome.

Just to clarify things, the margin commands just set the page margin.  It's not positioning the cursor. After your Esc E the printer is reset and is positioned at the top corner. That includes a margin of usually .25 inches.  Setting them to zero moved the *first* thing you printed up and over because the margin was no longer there.

You can position the cursor directly. The command is Esc & a ### [H or V] where ### is a number and H is for horizontal positioning and V is for vertical positioning.  The default measurement is 300 dpi so ### would be inches*300.

For example, if you wanted to position the cursor three inches down and two inches over you could print this:

PRINT ESC:"&a600H":ESC:"&a900V":"Two inches over three down":

I didn't actually test that but I think it's right.

Another thing about PCL is that the command ends  at the first upper case character. That means that if you're using the ESC&a command you can combine both the horizontal and vertical into one command without having to send the ESC&a every time like this:

PRINT ESC:"&a300h600V"":"One inch over two down":

It also doesn't matter what order the sub commands are in. You could print it either way:

PRINT ESC:"&a600v300H"":"One inch over two down":

Finally, are you sure you want to use PCL?  I did a lot of PCL programming back in the day. The problem is that not all printers are PCL printers. Also it's more difficult to email PCL documents. PDF's work a lot better for these kinds of things and there are an  almost infinite number of ways to create them.

You're welcome.

Just to clarify things, the margin commands just set the page margin.  It's not positioning the cursor. After your Esc E the printer is reset and is positioned at the top corner. That includes a margin of usually .25 inches.  Setting them to zero moved the *first* thing you printed up and over because the margin was no longer there.

You can position the cursor directly. The command is Esc & a ### [H or V] where ### is a number and H is for horizontal positioning and V is for vertical positioning.  The default measurement is 300 dpi so ### would be inches*300.

For example, if you wanted to position the cursor three inches down and two inches over you could print this:

PRINT ESC:"&a600H":ESC:"&a900V":"Two inches over three down":

I didn't actually test that but I think it's right.

Another thing about PCL is that the command ends  at the first upper case character. That means that if you're using the ESC&a command you can combine both the horizontal and vertical into one command without having to send the ESC&a every time like this:

PRINT ESC:"&a300h600V"":"One inch over two down":

It also doesn't matter what order the sub commands are in. You could print it either way:

PRINT ESC:"&a600v300H"":"One inch over two down":

Finally, are you sure you want to use PCL?  I did a lot of PCL programming back in the day. The problem is that not all printers are PCL printers. Also it's more difficult to email PCL documents. PDF's work a lot better for these kinds of things and there are an  almost infinite number of ways to create them.

It also may help you to map out the stationary that you're trying to print on so that you can determine the column and row positions for each line item to print. Judging from the examples above, I'd guess that you're using standard 6 LPI down the page and 10 CPI across? There used to be available a thing called a "programmers ruler" which had divisions of 6LPI and 10CPI that can be used to map out the stationary and then adjust your code to print exactly where you wanted. I have one somewhere but have not used it for many years but they're extremely useful in cases such as this.

Without such a useful ruler the way I'd go about it is reset the printer, set your margins to zero, LPI to 6, CPI to 10 and then issue a series of print commands that will linefeed down the page until you get to the starting point. Then print your line items using spaces to position to the correct column. If things are slightly out then maybe adjust your margins to nudge the start down or to the right a bit. A lot of trial and error.

Cheers
Peter

Since this is for check printing, fortunately, we won't have to be concerned with potential email issues.

This should get me through to the next hurdle, which will be the MICR line.

Very helpful. Thanks again, @Joe Goldthwaite.

------------------------------
Shawn Waldie
enterprise application developer
Rocket Forum Shared Account
Los Angeles CA US
------------------------------

I thought I was going to be able to help you out on that.  I've written check printing programs that print directly from Pick. Sadly that program didn't print the MICR line. We must have been using pre-printed checks that already had the MICR line on it. It did print the signature by putting the printer into plotter mode and sending the drawing commands.

Later I wrote a printing program in VB that did print the MICR line.  It used the VB printer object which is scaled in twips. Twips are 1440 pixels/inch so you'd have to adjust them for your printer. The program I wrote had an adjustment number that was passed into the main routine. The number adjusted the left and top margins to get the check position correct for whatever printer they were using.

This is the routine that printed it. I change the routing and transit numbers to zeros for obvious reasons:

Private Sub PrintMicr()
         
   Dim strMicrLine As String
   Dim strCheckNum As String
   
   strCheckNum = Space(12)
      
   With Printer

     .ForeColor = &H282828 '40 Set 3 '2003-09-09 M&I tested this color to be the
                                     'darkest that wasn't too dark.  Sets four and five also
                                     'passed testing
      .Font = "Micr"
      .FontBold = False
      .FontSize = 9
      
      RSet strCheckNum = "/" & mCheck.CheckNum & "/"
      strMicrLine = strCheckNum & " &000000000& 000000000/"
      
     .CurrentY = 15040
     .CurrentX = 1316
      Printer.Print strMicrLine
     
     .ForeColor = 0  'set back to black
   
    End With
   
End Sub

You need to have a MICR font selected and a magnetic toner cartridge for your printer. The "/"  and "&" used to be the start and stop characters. Those funny ones on the MICR line.  I tried testing it to make sure they worked and... they didn't. It seems that with Unicode now. you might need to use U+2446 (⑆) and U+2445 (⑅). Using "/" and "&" will probably still work on the printer, I don't know. You'll have to test it.

I downloaded a MICR font from here.

You're supposed to be able to download TTF fonts to the printers now. They didn't exist back when I was doing this so I don't know how you would go about it. It looks complicated. I think we originally had a MICR font cartridge. 

Thank you for the suggestions, @Peter Cheney.

This will definitely be one of those types of projects, so I'll be looking into that programmers ruler, too.

I'm not sure if the Unicode characters were correct.  These should be:

• Transit (Routing) Symbol: Unicode U+2446 (⑆)
• Amount Symbol: Unicode U+2447 (⑇)
• On-Us Symbol: Unicode U+2448 (⑈)
• Dash Symbol: Unicode U+2449 (⑉)

One issue I ran into is that there was no standard for mapping ASCII characters to the special MICR symbols. It could vary by font set so you'll have to test it with whatever MICR font you use.