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SET PRiNter Version 3.1 Copyright 1993 Castle Oaks Computer Services Post Office Box 36082 Indianapolis, IN 46236-0082 SET PRINTER is a shareware utility that allows you to set several printer options through software instead of setting them through front panel or dip switches. If you find this program useful, you should send in a registra- tion fee of $10 to Castle Oaks. When you register, you will be sent the latest version of SET PRINTER and some initialization files for various printers. Registered users are informed of any upgrades to this program and other programs offered by Castle Oaks. Most printers offer a variety of options that a user can select by manually setting switches or by imbedding commands in a file that is to be printed. SET PRINTER offers a third alternative. You can set several of your printer options from this program and they will stay in effect until your printer receives other commands or until you turn off the printer. This utility is most useful for when you are going to print a file by using the PRINT or COPY or PRinT SCreen command of DOS, or when you use some application that sends output to the printer without sending printer com- mands. For example, sometimes I want to make a printout that is double or triple spaced so that I can write on the output between the printed lines. To do so, you execute SETPRN and set the lines per inch to 2 or 3; then exit and make your printout. You probably CANNOT use it with a word proces- sor, since most word processors have special drivers that control your printer. SET PRINTER contains a setup option that allows you to customize it for your particular printer. Your custom setup can be stored in an initializa- tion file so that it will be automatically loaded each time you use the program. In fact, you can have initialization files for more than one printer. This will be described later. The default settings for SET PRINTER are for use with an Epson LQ-2500 printer and any printer that has compatible commands (e.g Panasonic 1124.) When the program is initiated by entering SETPRN from the command line (or by using a DOS icon in Windows), the following main menu will appear: Parameters now set for - LQ-2500 0 Set draft or letter quality 1 Select font 2 Set pitch 3 Set enhancements 4 Set lines per inch 5 Set specials 6 Print test page 7 Initialize printer 8 Set up for a different printer 9 End program ? Also, the program will send an initialization command to your printer to choose its default settings. Therefore, your printer should be turned on and on-line before starting SET PRINTER. Each of the above options will be described in detail. However, option 8 will be discussed last because it is very extensive and you may not need to refer to it at all. 0. Most printers provide a draft and letter quality (or near letter quali- ty) mode. Option 1 allows you to select a command sequence to tell the printer which mode to use. 1. When you select option 1, the following (or similar) screen will appear: Present font is (name of current font or 'UNKNOWN') Select one of the following: a Bold PS b Sans Serif c Courier d Prestige e Script f Tiny OFF g Tiny ON h Spare i Spare j Spare k Spare l Spare m Spare n Spare Any other, causes a return to the main menu. ? By selecting one of the above options, the program will send the appro- priate command to your printer to set that font. In this example, the tiny font requires both an OFF and ON option. These fonts are usually meaning- less if the printer is in draft mode. (Note: If your printer does not provide the same fonts, or if you want the menu to display different names, or in a different order, you can customize via the setup option. This customizing is possible for all of the following menus.) 2. When you select option 2, the following (or similar) screen will appear: Present pitch is (name of current pitch or "UNKNOWN') Select one of the following: a Pica b Elite c Micron d Comp. Pica e Comp. Elite f Prop. OFF g Prop. ON h Spare i Spare j Spare k Spare l Spare m Spare n Spare Any other, causes a return to the main menu. ? Each of these options will send the appropriate command to your printer to set the desired pitch. In the above example, an OFF and ON option is re- quired for proportional spacing. Note: Proportional may not be meaningful if the printer is in draft mode. 3. Option 3 provides a method to select one or more special print enhance- ments. When selected, the following screen appears: Enhancements - most recent chosen was: (name or UNKNOWN) Select one of the following: a Emphasized OFF b Emphasized ON c Underline OFF d Underline ON e Italic OFF f Italic ON g Height SINGLE h Height DOUBLE i Width SINGLE j Width DOUBLE k Spare l Spare m Spare n Spare Any other, causes a return to the main menu. ? Note that in the enhancements group, separate options are required for OFF and ON commands. (Some printers allow you to use some enhancements in combinations and others do not.) 4. This option selects the vertical spacing of the printer. When you choose option 4, the following screen appears: Lines per inch is now (one of the descriptions below or 'UNKNOWN') Select one of the following: a Two b Three c Four d Five e Six f Seven + half g Eight h Nine i Spare j Spare k Spare l Spare m Spare n Spare Any other, causes a return to the main menu. ? Choosing one of the above options will send the appropriate command to the printer to select the desired vertical line spacing. 5. Although options 1 through 4 provide spares for functions of your choos- ing, you may need even more spares and/or you may prefer not to put func- tions into menus 1 through 4 that are not related to those categories. Option 5 is provided with 14 spares for your use. If, for example, you have a color printer you might put the commands for colors in this sub-menu. 6. After selecting some of the above options, you may want to run a test. This option gives you a choice of three options. The following screen appears: Select one of the following: a Print short test; (10 lines, no form feed) b Print full test; (55lines, form feed) c Print a file If you choose the short test, 10 lines will be printed followed by a blank line. If you choose the full test, 55 lines will be printed followed by a form feed. If you choose 'c', you can print any ASCII file you desire. When you choose option 'c', the following screen is displayed: Enter name of file to print (Include drive and/or directory, if needed) Ifyou print a file while running SET PRINTER, the file may contain imbedded printer commands. A printer command consists of a lead-in character, a tilde (~), followed by a main menu option number and a sub-menu letter (if needed.) Thus, to set the printer to draft mode, the command is: ~0d To set it back to letter quality, the command is: ~0L (Actually, any letter other than 'd' is OK) The sub-menu letter may be either upper or lower case. Only the main menu options, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 may be used in embedded commands. In the case of option 7, no sub-menu letter is required. If you need to print a tilde, use two consecutive tildes. The first will be ignored and the second will be printed. The file, TEST.FIL, has been included for use to test the use of imbedded printer commands. Print it using PRINT or COPY, then print it from within SET PRINTER. Compare the two printouts to see how the imbedded commands work. 7. This option will send an initialization command to the printer and then return to the main menu. If, during set up, you have entered a new initial- ization command, you should then select option 7 to reset the printer. 9. Option 9 terminates SET PRINTER and returns the system to the DOS prompt (or to Windows.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SET UP (Option 8) Although the setup option may lead to a lengthy process, a user will usual- ly only need to do it once for each printer. The first thing you must do is to study your printer's manual. Look up the various options discussed in these pages and write them down for easy reference. Remember, your printer may not provide all of the options de- scribed earlier and/or it may have options not included in SET PRINTER. This discussion will deal with both of these possibilities. When you select option 8 from the main menu, the following set up screen appears: 0 Draft and LQ sequences 1 Font sequences 2 Pitch sequences 3 Enhancements sequences 4 Lines per inch sequences 5 Special functions 6 Change printer name 7 Printer initialization sequence 8 Write changes to file, and exit setup 9 Exit setup without saving changes to file Any other causes a return to the main menu ? (Note that screen colors are changed to remind you that you are in set up mode.) 0. This option asks for the command to put the printer in draft mode. The following screen will appear: Present draft command is: In decimal: ddd ddd ddd (Will display current command for draft mode.) In ASCII (If less than 32, mnemonic is shown in dim letters.): xxxxxx (Will display current command in ASCII) If you want to make a change, enter the new sequence Use decimal numbers (or actual characters, see documentation) Separate decimal numbers with one or more spaces (none for ASCII) If you do not want to make a change, press ENTER If your printer does not support this option, you must still enter something such as a single zero. After you enter the draft command, the following screen will appear: Present LQ command is: In decimal: DDD DDD DDD (Will display current command for letter quality mode.) In ASCII (If less than 32, mnemonic is shown in dim letters.): xxxxxx (Will display current command in ASCII) If you want to make a change, enter the new sequence Use decimal numbers (or actual characters, see documentation) Separate the numbers with one or more spaces If you do not want to make a change, press ENTER If your printer does not support this option, you must still enter something such as a single zero. After you enter the command for letter quality mode, the program will return to the set up menu. ----------------- NOTE ABOUT ENTERING COMMAND CHARACTERS ------------------ You may use the digits 0 through 9 to form each command character followed by a space; or you may use the ASCII character for each command character; or you may use the decimal value(s) of some of the command character(s) followed by ASCII characters. Your printer manual will probably show each command as ASCII characters, their decimal equivalents, and their hexideci- mal equivalents. Your manual might show for the draft sequence the follow- ing: ESC x 0 Dec 27 120 48 Hex 1B 78 30 You may enter: 27 120 48 or: 27 x0 or: ^[x0 In the last example, ^[ means hold down the control key and press [. This will enter an ESCAPE character. Once you have entered a non-numeric charac- ter, the rest of the command must be in ASCII characters. When entering characters as decimal values, they may be 1, 2, or 3 digit numbers, and each value must be separated from the next value by one or more spaces. (A command sequence for this option and for all others must not exceed 40 characters.) If an option is not available for your printer, you must still enter a value. If you enter a single zero as a dummy value it will not be sent to the printer when you select the corresponding option. You could leave the default sequence in place but you should not use that option because the command might put your printer into a state that you do not want. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Option 1 allows you to set up the names of the fonts available and their corresponding commands. You may have up to 14 different fonts. When you select one of the options, a screen similar to the following will appear: Present name of font N is: (Name currently assigned to font N.) Enter a new name (To leave unchanged; press ENTER only) (Note: N will be one of the values a through n. The maximum length that you may enter for this option and each other option is 20 characters. After entering a new name (or accepting the old one), the next screen is dis- played: Font N command is: In decimal: ddd ddd ddd (Command to select font N.) In ASCII (If less than 32, mnemonic is shown in dim letters.): xxxxxx (Will display current command in ASCII) If you want to make a change, enter the new sequence Use decimal numbers (or actual characters, see documentation) Separate decimal numbers with one or more spaces (none for ASCII) If you do not want to make a change, press ENTER If your printer does not support this option, you must still enter something such as a single zero. Note that in the font (also pitch, lines per inch, and specials) group not all of the 14 options are used. The unused ones are designated as spares. You can use these spares for anything you wish. Some examples of the use of spares will be given later. If you do not have a particular font, you might enter 'N/A' or 'Unavailable' or 'Spare' as the name and zero as the com- mand. After entering the information about a particular font, the program again displays the font names. When you are done changing fonts, press any char- acter other than a through n and the program will return to the set up menu. 2. Option 2 allows you to set up for 14 different pitch commands. These commands determine how many characters per inch will be printed. Changing the pitch menu and commands is similar to that described for fonts. 3. Option 3 allows you to have 14 enhancements commands. (Some enhancements may require two menu options.) The default ones are: emphasized, underline, italic, height, and width. You may have different ones; or, you may want to use these for other features. Some printers do not allow all combinations of enhancements. Refer to your printer manual to determine any limitations. For example, your printer may not allow you to combine emphasized with draft mode. Changing the enhancements menu and commands is similar to that described for fonts. 4. Option 4 allows you to provide for up to 14 different commands to set vertical spacing in lines per inch. Changing the lines per inch menu and commands is similar to that described for fonts. Your printer may provide two or more ways to select lines per inch. You must choose the one(s) that is suitable to get what you want. One printer lets you choose vertical spacing in 72nds of an inch and also in 216ths of an inch. Another printer offers spacing in 60ths of an inch, 120ths of an inch, and 360ths of an inch. 5. Option 5 allows you to have up to 14 different special commands. The set up procedure is similar to that described for fonts. 6. When you select option 6, the following screen appears: Current printer name is: (name of printer) Enter a new name (To leave unchanged; press ENTER only) You can enter a name up to 30 characters in length. 7. This option allows you to enter a new initialization command. When you select this option, the following screen appears: Present initialization sequence is: In decimal: 027 064 (This example shows the default initialization.) In ASCII (If less than 32, mnemonic is shown in dim letters.): ESC@ If you want to make a change, enter the new sequence Use decimal numbers (or actual characters, see documentation) Separate decimal numbers with one or more spaces (none for ASCII) If you do not want to make a change, press ENTER If your printer does not support this option, you must still enter something such as a single zero. 8. After changing all of the options that you want to change, you may save these settings by using option 8. It will create (or overwrite) a file named SETPRN.INI in the currently logged directory. The next time you use SET PRINTER, it will load the commands from SETPRN.INI, if present on the currently logged directory. By doing your set up in different directories, you may have initialization files (SETPRN.INI) for various printers. 9. Option 9 allows you to exit set up without saving the changes. You may just want to abort set up; or you may use set up to change one (or more) options, leave set up, use the new feature to command the printer, and then exit the program. Earlier, I mentioned that your printer may (probably certainly) have other features that you would like for SET PRINTER to use. You may include some of these by using the spares that are provided. If you use all of the spares, then it may be necessary to sacrifice some other options that you may not need. Although the spares occur in five different groups, there is no requirement that the function you implement be in a particular group. You must remember the group in which you have placed each special command. For example, you may want to have commands to disable/enable the paper-out sensor. You can use one spare for a 'Paper-out OFF' and another for 'Paper- out ON'. You might substitute a form feed or a line feed for one of the other spares. Other features you might implement are left and right mar- gins, skip perforation, unidirectional printing, reverse feed the paper, etc. Under option 8, I mentioned that you might put initialization files for different printers in different directories. You might also have initiali- zation files stored under different names in the same directory. In the latter case, you have to copy the needed intialization file to SETPRN.INI before executing SETPRN. For example, you might save the LQ-2500 initiali- zation values in SETPRN.INI and then rename it LQ-2500.INI. Then run SETPRN again changing the commands to those needed for an LX-800. Save these commands in SETPRN.INI and then rename the file to LX-800.INI. At a later session before using SETPRN, COPY either LQ-2500.INI or LX-800.INI to SETPRN.INI. When a person has more than one printer on a computer, he usually has them wired through a switch box. However, some people have multiple printers connected to their computer through separate ports. They can redirect their printer output by using the MODE command. However, some people prefer to send their output to the appropriate port. For example, let's say that you have a laser printer connected to LPT1 and a dot matrix printer connected to COM1. Furthermore, the computer's default is that LPT1 is the PRN de- vice. If you want to use the dot matrix printer, you can use the MODE command to redirect the print output to COM1 or you could print a file by using the copy command: COPY <file name> COM1: SETPRN is compatible with the latter usage, SET PRiNter provides the option of including a device name on the command line. Thus: SETPRN COM1 will send output from SETPRN to the COM1 port instead of the default which is PRN. (Note, do not include the colon when entering a device name.) This provides yet another option, the device you may specify can be a file name. You might initiate SETPRN with the command line: SETPRN DBLESP.DRF Then while in SETPRN, set the number of lines per inch to 3 and send the command for draft mode. After exiting SETPRN, the file DBLSP.DRF will contain the commands to set the printer for double spacing vertically and put it in draft mode. Then, any time you want to set your printer to that combination, just: COPY DBLESP.DRF PRN: Thus, you could have several different files that set your printer without using SETPRN each time. The above capability (sending output to a different device or file), provides a way of avoiding a possible problem. When you execute SETPRN, it sends an initialization command to the printer. This will be either the default command (ESC @) or the initialization command that you have saved in an initialization file. Suppose that you want to set up for a new printer and you don't want SETPRN to send an initialization sequence to the printer. If you start the program with the command line: SETPRN NUL the program will send all output to the NULL device. You may then proceed with the set up (including a new initialization sequence.) After saving the commands in SETPRN.INI, exit the program. The next time you run SETPRN, the new initialization command from SETPRN.INI will be sent to the printer.