Star Micronics NX-15 Printer User Manual


 
CHAPTER 5
FORMATTING TEXT
Subjectscoveredin Chapter5 include–
The carriage return and line feed
Q The amount of space between lines
c Moving to the next page
. The number of lines on a printed page
. Horizontal and vertical tabs
Setting margins left, right, top and bottom
Centering and aligning
Chapter 4 showed us the basic techniques for using the
printer. Now we’re ready for the more advanced ones. We’ll con-
centrate on changing the appearance of the page to suit our
needs.
LINES AND LINE SPACING
Starting a new line
Up until now the only time we have thought about printing on
a new !ine is when we didn ‘twant it to happen. We learned that
putting a semicolon (;)at the end of a BASIC line will notend the
line of printing. So somehow, the computer tells the printer
when to end one line and start another.
There are two codes that are used to end one line and start
another. They are carriage return (CHR$(13)) and line feed
(CHR$(1O)).Like the escape codes, they have been given ab-
breviations which you’ll find many texts (including this one):
(CR) and <LF). The codes are simple, but their action is a little
confusing (especially with BASIC). Let’s begin with the carriage
return. Each time the printer receives a CHR$(13)it returns the
print head to the left margin. It does not advance the paper (if
DIP switch 1-8 is on; see below).