Epson Escape Code for Landscape Orientation

Question:

I have an Epson Stylus Color 600. Epson tells me the Escape Codes are exactly the same as the LQ-850, and others of that line. I have a really old document that I maintain in PFS: Professional Write, an old DOS word processor, but the word processor doesn't natively support landscape mode. What I've done previously, with HP printers, is to pass the escape codes to the printer before the document (PFS allows you to do this). With the HP printer, I just sent the codes to select 8.5" by 14" paper, and a font (Courier) that was in landscape orientation. I'm wondering do you know which Escape Codes for the Epson printers will do this same thing? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer:

Nope. Can't do it.

According to Epson Tech Support, no escape code for landscape mode exists, and the printer has to be in graphics mode in order to rotate the image for landscaping. Also, Epson Tech Support recommends software packages like  SideWays or AllWays. Well, this does work, but the problem is that they produce terrible print quality (it looks like dot matrix print on my ink jet printer).

Some Solutions

The following solutions can be used by themselves or in combination to solve most of the problems printing documents created by DOS applications.

I strongly recommend using a Windows text editor. It is the quickest, easiest, and most efficient way to manage and maintain text files in Windows. With a good fixed-pitch font you can both view and print any DOS text file.

The old DOS utility prn2file.com works very well for capturing printer output and redirecting it to a file. NetWare's CAPTURE statement can also capture to a file, but the file must be located on a NetWare volume. Load the file into a word processor, set the page orientation, select all, change to a fixed-pitch font (like courier new), reduce the font size to 8 or 9, if necessary reduce the line spacing, and print. Macros work well for this. A Windows text editor is the better solution because no changes to the output file will be needed. Open the file, change the page orientation in printer setup, and print.

Note, Windows also comes with a Generic/Text Only print driver that I have yet to get DOS applications to use. This is why I keep prn2file.com around even though it is very old DOS software.

You could send the printer escape sequences (codes) for 12 characters per inch (cpi) and condensed (17 cpi) to the printer before printing. This would give you 20 cpi. In other words, you could fit 160 characters per line (cpl) from left edge to right edge of the printed page. Condensing the font size allows you to reduce the report's width in order to print without line wrapping or cutoff.

Depending on the printer margin settings you may lose the last few characters of a report. For instance, on a Brother MFC-7000, the cpl was 129. Two more characters than what was needed to print a report. You can also change the margin settings before printing by sending the proper codes.

This was a technique I would use with source code listings before the days of Windows printing and before I started to use TextPad. If you are using an old DOS word processor, embedding the printer escape sequences (codes) might be a good solution. For instance, most programming editors supported the insertion of extended characters. Printer codes are just a combination of extended characters. Right before each procedure, I would insert a comment followed by a form feed code and the double strike (bold) code. After the procedure, I would insert another comment that would insert the code to turn double strike off. When I printed the source code listing, each procedure started at the beginning of a page and the name, parameters, and return values were bolded.

For existing document, insert any needed codes into you document. For application reports, output to a file and insert the codes into the file before printing.

Some old DOS application included printer escape sequences (codes) with the report data in order to control the printer and format the report. This problem is the most difficult to deal with. Typically, you must output the report to a file, load the file into a Windows word processor or text editor, and format the report to either eliminate or add codes in order for the report to print properly.

For instance, an application assumed it would always use a HP printer. The programmer hard-coded the printer escape sequences into the application and there was no way to change it. Everyone was afraid to get rid of the printer because they still needed to print reports. To make matters worse the printer had to be installed on the computer's printer port. Which mean only one person could print reports. A real pain. To solve the problem, a batch file was created that captured all printer port activity to a file. A Microsoft Word macro was created that opened this file, removed the HP specific codes, inserted the proper codes for printing, adjusted the page orientation, and printed the report. Now everyone can print whatever report they need, to any printer, whenever they want.

Extended ASCII Characters

Now let us talk about the extended ASCII characters and the problem of converting documents from DOS to Windows. The extended character set allowed us to use copyright, trademark, lines, boxes, graphics, equation, and other symbols. Some characters were used sparingly and can be easily replaced or updated when converting. Some common characters are supported in the True-Type fonts installed and need no conversion. Yet, other characters where used so much that converting a document can be tedious. I am talking about those extended ASCII characters used to form lines, boxes, and other graphics. Many writers included included these characters in technical documentation. Software developers would capture the screen text and insert it into the software's user manual. Hard drive manufacturers would draw the drive, the location of jumpers, and how the jumpers were to be set. These "graphic" characters are the main problem during conversion.

Documents with these extended characters require manual formatting in order to convert them successfully. Microsoft first introduced the True-Type font MS LineDraw to help with the conversion. This was a fixed-pitch font that included all the original ASCII and extended ASCII character set (except for characters below decimal value 32). Later, Microsoft provided the True-Type fixed-pitch font Courier New. Seagate has Letter Gothic Line True-Type font. This font is yet another fixed-pitch font containing the line characters used in their on-line hard drive specifications. They recommend that you down load the font, because it is easier for you to install a special font for viewing then it is for them to update all their documentation.

Converting files from DOS to Windows

• Which leads us to converting DOS text files to Windows word processing documents. If you don't care about what word processor or text editor you use, the easiest and best results can be obtained with a windows text editor called TextPad and four fonts: Terminal, MS LineDraw, Courier New, and Letter Gothic Line. The true-type font MS LineDraw will produce the best results of the four fonts when used with a Windows text editor. The true-type font Courier New will produce the best results of the four fonts when used with a Windows word processor.

MS LineDraw was originally installed by default in Office 4.2. I believe it was shipped with Office 95, but not Office 97. Microsoft replaced MS LineDraw with a true-type font called Courier New that supports The Unicode Standard Box Drawing Symbols.  Letter Gothic Line and terminal will work, but the characters are not as clean as in MS LineDraw and Courier New.

With TextPad, no converting is needed. You can both view and print with the font of your choosing. Using a good Windows text editor is by far the quickest and easiest way to go.

• The best long-term solution would be to convert the DOS text file into a Windows word processor file format in use, and convert any characters to their Unicode equivalent. One benefit of this would be the ability to embed the fonts used to create the document into the files. Also, you would only need one application to manage the files. That is a disadvantage of using TextPad. You still need a separate application to edit them.

Converting Overview

Quick run down of what is needed, if you want to convert the files into a word processor:

1. Change the page layout
2. Change the font to Courier New
3. Reduce the font size.
4. Search and replace the characters.
5. Change the line spacing, if needed.

Conversion Macros

• The file Unicode Box Drawing Character Set.doc contains two macros, that may help understand how to create macros to convert DOS text files.

The macro ConvertDOSOEM_to_CourierNew does a search and replace for some of the more common extended ASCII characters and replaces them with their equivalent Unicode Box Drawing Symbols. The macro MakeBoxDrawingUnicodeChart creates a chart to help with converting. I do not support these macros in any way. They worked for my needs, and are provided only for your information. Also, check out the Word macros that are installed with Word for findsymbol and ascvalue.

• The file dos2win.doc contains other related information that you may find useful.

References

To get more information and download TextPad visit http://www.textpad.com. The editor is shareware and inexpensive. Well worth the price, and the latest version support Unicode.

To get MS LineDraw and more information review Microsoft Article ID Q96040 at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q96/0/40.asp. I do not think it is available, but I think I know where to get it.

To get Letter Gothic Line download ftp://ftp.seagate.com/techsuppt/letgothl.zip.

The Unicode Standard can be found at http://www.unicode.org.

EPSON ESCAPE CODES

Here are some Epson Escape Codes, otherwise known by Epson as ESC or ESC/P2.

Commands sent to the printer while printing a document are generally known as printer escape sequences, because the escape character must come before any character you don't want to print. This is generally true except for non-printable characters. These are the characters below the decimal number 32. For instance, the code BEL does not need ESC to be sent to the printer first because you can't print a sound. To toggle underlining you must send ESC before the hyphen; otherwise, the printer is just going to print a hyphen.

Some codes require a parameter to be sent, this should immediately follow the code. For example, to set the line spacing to 20/180 inches use 27 51 20. The decimal value for ESC is 27 and the hex value is 1B, 51 is the decimal value for the code 3, and 20 is the decimal value for the line spacing parameter.

For on/off commands, 1=on, 0=off.

Epson LQ-2500 Printer Codes

Escape Codes LQ-510

Escape Codes LQ-850

Escape Codes X-810