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Printer drivers
Most software packages already include the printer commands they need.
The programs that send commands to the printer so you don’t have to enter
them yourself are called printer drivers.
Many programs ask you to install or conjigure your printer, which usually
means keying into a menu the particular setup information describing your
Star LaserPrinter 8111. You enter such things as how you want to underline,
alter line spacing, or move to a new print position.
Some programs, such as WordPerfect and the systems from Lotus Devel-
opment Corporation, let you put printer Escape sequences before or right
inside the document you want to print. To turn on boldface, for example, you
might hold down special keys on your keyboard, often labelled CONTROL
or ALT, as you press another key. Or you might use a special Function key,
such as F6.
In fact, to take real advantage of your StarLaserPrinter 8111’s special abilities,
you might opt for a word processor that lets you specify font changes easily.
WordPerfect and Microsoft Word are strong at this, but are by no means the
only good font manipulators.
If you have trouble using a particular program with your Star LaserPrinter
8111, you’ll probably get answers most quickly by asking your software
supplier how the program interacts with your printer.
In this manual we refer to programs, fonts and other products sold by several
companies. Please realize that mentioning these products does not mean Star
Micronics endorses them in any way.
Sending your own printer commands
Without a printer driver, sending control codes and Escape sequences to
your printer properly requires some knowledge of a programming language
like BASIC or Pascal, or at least of how to put such codes into a program.
With programming languages, the computer doesn’t act on the commands
you put into a program until you tell it to run that program.
When you give a command to the printer from a computer program, you
normally enter each part of the command as a separate character. This way
you don’t affect anything else happening on the computer. You often send
each code or character in the command by giving its position in the ASCII
table, as a decimal or hex number.
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