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Selecting (or describing) a printer is the main step in the installation
process and frequently the only step necessary. If you selected this printer
or any Star, Epson or IBM printer you should be able to use software
commands for all the standard printer functions, including bold or dou-
ble-strike printing, underlining, subscripts, superscripts, margin control, line-
spacing control, and graphics.
Printer command options
Besides the standard printer functions, however, your printer has some
capabilities your software may not be aware of, including double- and
quadruple-size printing and the printing of special characters assigned to
control codes. Some software enables you to define these capabilities as user
options in the installation process. Read your software manual to find out
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whether you can do this and if so, how.
The most useful thing you can do is to define a way to enter the escape
code < ESC > , which is the control character with decimal character code
27 (hexadecimal 1 B). This code usually cannot be keyed in directly (pressing
the ESC key will not work). As an installation option, however, you may
be able to assign it to a function key or a special key combination. Doing
so will put the full power of the printer at your disposal.
Type styles
Some word-processing software has commands that enable you to
change type styles in the middle of a document without a printing pause.
To use these commands you must generally define the printer’s type styles
(fonts) during installation, by assigning them numbers for example. Read
your software manual for details, and refer to Appendix B for the relevant
printer commands.
Page width
Spreadsheet programs in particular may ask you to specify the printer’s
column width. The column width of this printer depends on the character
pitch used:
Pica 80 columns
Elite 96 columns
Semi-condensed 120 columns (Standard mode only)
Condensed pica 137 columns
Condensed elite 160 columns (Standard mode only)
The character pitch can be selected from the control panel before you
start printing, or possibly by an initialization sequence as described next.