Switching symbol sets in PCL5 printers

[Bob Rasmussen]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2006, William James McEachran wrote:

> I'm missing something here.
> I've got to print a small string with the "OCR-A" symbol set.
> I've got this defined on my print table as
>
> $1b (0O

That sets the character set to "OCR-A".

>
> Nothing happens. No change when the code is encountered.
>
> I then tried using the pre-defined codes for changing the
> character sets (print codes 24, 25, 26 in most of the hp print code
> tables) and again nothing happened.  The character sets didn't change.
>
> I confirmed that the printer received the print codes (by issuing the
> printer command "$1b &s0C $1b Y" -- this causes the commands to be printed
> instead of intepreted, cool).  I'm trying this with an all-in-one HP product
> which respects all the other PCL5 commands.  I also tried with 'pcl6' and
> got the same results.
>
> Question: Beyond issuing the character set command is there an additional
> step required to effect the output produced?

You might need to do
   Esc (s104T
This selects an OCR-A font, specifically the one contained in a common HP
DIMM (ROM cartridge) called "Barcodes and more". For completeness, in my HP 4550, with DIMM
installed, if I generate a PCL font list from the front panel, it tells me
I can select OCR-A with
  Esc (0O Esc (s0p10.00h12.0v0s0b104T

However, I have my doubts whether an all-in-one unit will have an OCR font
installed.

Print Wizard's PCL translation feature includes emulation of this
cartridge.

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
 company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
          voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
            fax: (US) 503-624-0760
            web: http://www.anzio.com