Hello,

I learn that there is only one bitmap font installed in HP-printers, namely "Line Printer" fontface. And only with bitmap fonts, both pitch (cpi) and height parameters are valid. However, when selecting the font with
<ESC>(s0p12h12v0s0b0T
whatever you put as height value it is always ignored. Can somebody tell me why?

Understand that the font command you are issuing only SELECTS a font from those available in the printer. It does not create it or somehow modify an existing font to your specification.

Generally, fixed pitch fonts are SELECTED by their pitch. I think that both the height and pitch are considered only to resolve an ambiguity between two fonts.

If you don't get a 12h12v font, then there probably insn't one available.

Read the detailed account on fonts in the PCL5 Tech Reference.

Jim Asman

Jim is quite correct; you cannot create a font, only select what is there; the printer will choose the closest match to the specified and/or defaulted font selection characteristics, in a well-defined order of precedence.

The bitmap LinePrinter font is only available in one fixed size: 8.5 point, 16.67 characters-per-inch. Bitmap fonts are selected by specifying both heoght and pitch, so the LinePrinter font is selected using:

{esc}({ID}{esc}(s0p8.5v16.67hv0s0b0T

where:

{esc} represents the escape character (0x1b);
{ID} represents the required symbol set identifier (there are about a dozen available symbol set variants with the LinePrinter font; 0N is the most useful in Western environments - it matches the ISO 8859/1 coded character set).

All the other standard resident fonts on modern LaserJet devices are scalable.

For the fixed-pitch scalable fonts (Courier and LetterGothic), the required size is selected by specifying a pitch value.

For the remaining (proportionally-spaced) scalable fonts, the required size is selected by specifying a height (pointsize) value.

Once more thank you for the detailed information.

All the best

Jörg