Chapter 3

Using the Printer

Operating the Control Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-2

Setting the DIP Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6

Changing a DIP Switch Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6

The DIP Switch Tables

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-7

The DIP Switch Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-9

Page Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-10

Skip Over Perforation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-11

Adjusting the Loading Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-12

The Loading Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-12

Using Micro-adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-13

Using Short Tear-off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-15

Adjusting the Tear-off Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-16

Selecting Typestyles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-19

Character Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-20

Condensed Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-21

Selecting an International Character Set

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-22

Choosing a Character Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-24

Using the Data Dump Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-26

Using the Printer 3-1

Operating the Control Panel

The indicator lights give you the current status of the printer. The buttons and paper handling functions let you control many of the printer settings.

Lights

’ = SLOT c MULTI-PART (orange)

On when the paper thickness lever is set to position

4 or

I

0 POWER -

XlLvl~l- OREADYhigher. When this light is blinking, the micro-adjustment

0 PAPER OUTfunction can be used.

‘= DRAFT

‘= ROMAN

‘= SANS SERIF

FORM

FEED 0

I L

POWER (green)

On when the POWER switch is on and power is supplied.

READY (green)

On when the printer is ready to accept input data. Flickers during

LINE

FEED is printing.

3 CONDENSED

LOAD

-PAPER OUT (red)

On when the printer is out of paper or when continuous paper is in the standby position.

~ ON LINE (green)

On when the printer is on line and ready to accept data.

3-2 Using the Printer

Operating the Control Panel

Buttons

OFOWER

7 p/l; I - 0 READY

0 PAPER OUT

-

- O N L I N E

This button controls the printer’s on line and off line status. Press this button to put the printer on line or to take it off line. When the printer is on line, the ON LINE light is on and the printer can receive and print data from the computer.

FORM FEED

When the printer is off line, press this button to eject a single sheet of paper or to advance continuous paper to the top of the next page.

one line, or hold it down to advance the paper continuously.

- L O A D / E J E C T

This button is used to feed paper to the loading position or to eject paper that is already loaded.

Paper is ejected forward if the paper release lever is set to the single-sheet position and backward (out of the paper path) if the release lever is set to the continuous paper position.

Using the Printer 3-3

Operating the Control Panel

SelecType

OFOWER

3$JU;l- OREADY

0 PAPER OUT

0 CONDENSEI

LOAD

/

,--_

- F O N T

This button is used to select LQ

ROMAN, LQ SANS SERIF, DRAFT mode, or a cartridge font (if installed). The two orange indicator lights show the selected font. See Selecting Typestyles later in this chapter.

-CONDENSED

This button is used to turn the condensed mode on and off. The orange indicator light is on when the printer is in the condensed mode. In the condensed mode, all characters are printed at approximately 60 percent of their normal width.

3-4 Using the Printer

Operating the Control Panel

Other control panel features

The control panel of your printer also gives you access to several special functions.

Self test:

Micro-adjustment:

Data dump:

Both a draft and Letter Quality self test function are built into the printer. The self test printout lets you check the current DIP switch settings and operating status of the printer. You can start the printer’s self test by holding down the LINE FEED button or the FORM FEED button while turning on the printer. See the section on the self test in

Chapter 1 for more information.

By pressing the FORM FEED button immediately after loading paper or when using short tear-off, you can make fine adjustments to the loading and short tear-off positions. These positions can be adjusted only while the MULTI-PART light is blinking. See the sections on adjusting the loading position and using the short tear-off function later in this chapter.

By holding down both the LINE FEED and FORM

FEED buttons while you switch on the printer, you turn on the data dump mode. This feature allows advanced users to locate the source of communications problems between the computer and printer. See the section on using the data dump mode on page 3-26 for more information.

Using the Printer 3-5

Setting the DIP Switches

Your printer has two sets of DIP (Dual Inline Package) switches located under a small cover above the control panel. By changing the settings of these switches, you can control various printer features, such as the character set and page length. The new settings become effective when the printer is turned on, reset, or initialized.

DIP switch settings are shown in the DIP switch tables starting on page

3-7. Descriptions of all the DIP switch functions begin on page 3-9.

Changing a DIP Switch Setting

To change a DIP switch setting, first turn off the printer. Then open the

DIP switch cover and use a pointed object, such as a pen, to change the

DIP switch settings. A DIP switch is on when it is up, and off when it is down.

The new DIP switch settings take effect when the printer is turned on.

3-6 Using the Printer

Setting the DIP Switches

The DIP Switch Tables

The tables below show the settings for each DIP switch. The shaded areas show the default or factory settings.

DIP switch 1

International character set

DIP switch 2

SW Description

2-1 Page length

2-2 Tear-off mode

2-3 I 1 -inch skip over perforation

2-4 Auto line feed

2-5 Input buffer capacity

2-6 Print direction of multi-pass

2-7 characters**

Character spacing

I

O N

12 inches

On

On

On

8 KB

OFF

11 inches

Off

Off off

1 KB*

Bi-directional Unidirectional 3-9

See table 3 3-8

1 2-8 1 I

* Required for use of user-defined (download) characters.

l

* When on and ESC U0 is input, multi-pass characters are printed bi-directionally

Page

3-10

3-9

3-11

3-9

3-9

Using the Printer 3-7

Setting the DIP Switches

Table 1 International character sets

Table 2 Font selection

Font

Roman

Sans Serif

Slot

Draft

SW1-4 SW1-5

OFF OFF

ON OFF

OFF ON

ON ON

Table 3 Character spacing cpi: characters per inch.

3-8 Using the Printer

Setting the DIP Switches

The DIP Switch Functions

Auto line feed

When auto line feed is on (DIP switch 2-4 on), each carriage return code (CR) is automatically followed by a line feed code (LF).

Input buffer capacity

The input buffer stores data from your computer. If you want to free your computer for other tasks while the printer prints, change the setting of switch 2-5 to 8 KB (on). Before using user-defined characters, however, be sure to set the input buffer to 1 KB (off).

Tear-off mode

When DIP switch

2-2 is on, the short tear-off mode is on. This feature automatically advances continuous paper to the tear-off position, and then reverse-feeds the paper to the loading position. See the section on using short tear-off later in this chapter.

01 CAUTION:

Do not use the short tear-off mode with labels.

Print direction of multi-pass characters

Multi-pass characters are normally printed unidirectionally. If DIP switch 2-6 is on and ESC U0 is input, multi-pass characters are printed bi-directionally.

Using the Printer 3-9

Page Length

When the setting of DIP switch 2-1 is off, the page length is set to 11 inches, or 279.4 mm. When it is on, the page length is 12 inches, or

304.8 mm. Be sure to set the page length to match the paper you are using.

Other page lengths can be set using the commands ESC C and ESC C 0.

See the Command Summary in Chapter 9 for details.

O!

Ol

Ql

01

Q1

01

Q1

01

01

O1

Ol

Ol

Ql

DIP SW2-1

OFF zi 11-inch page length

0’

DIP SW2-1

O N

12-inch page length

If you are using the built-in push tractor, you can also select 8.5 inches as the page length by using the control panel. When the printer is on line, press the LOAD/EJECT button once to select the 8.5-inch page length. The printer beeps four times to signal that the 8.5inch length has been selected. If you press the LOAD/EJECT button again, the printer beeps three times and returns to the page length selected by DIP switch

2-1.

3-10 Using the Printer

Skip Over Perforation

By changing the setting of DIP switch 2-3, you can set skip over perforation to on or off. If this feature is on when using continuous paper, a one-inch margin is provided between the last printable line on one page and the first printable line on the next page. This feature is very convenient if your application program does not provide for top and bottom margins.

If you adjust your loading position correctly, you can get half of the margin at the bottom of one page and half at the top of the next page, as shown in the following illustration.

DIP switch 2-3 ON (Skip over perforation ON)

0 23456789: ;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZI\)

3456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVwXYZ[\]--

0

- - - - - - - - - - - --_- _ _ _ _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

0

456789: ;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\l-

0 56789:; <=>?@?ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\I^_T(

6789: ;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZt\l*-'d

Note: Most application programs take care of top and bottom margins. Use skip over perforation only if your program does not provide these margins.

The skip over perforation setting can be set to values other than one inch by using the ESC N command. See the Command Summary in

L

Chapter 9 for details.

Using the Printer 3-11

Adjusting the Loading Position

The Loading Position

The loading position is the position of the paper when it has been loaded automatically by the printer.

This position is important because it determines where the printing begins on the page. If the printing is too high or too low on the page, change the loading position using the micro-adjustment feature described in the next section.

CAUTION:

Never use the platen knob to feed paper except in case of a paper jam or other paper feeding problem. (If you need to use the platen knob, make sure the power is off.) If you need to adjust the loading position, always use the micro-adjustment feature.

Until the loading position is reset, the printer remembers this position even if it is turned off, and uses it as a reference point for feeding paper.

The micro-adjustment feature moves the paper in 1/180-inch increments to make fine adjustments to the loading position. Once you have used micro-adjustment to change the loading position of continuous paper, the printer remembers that position even after it is turned off.

When you use micro-adjustment to change the loading position of single-sheet paper, however, the printer does not remember this position after the power is turned off. When the power is turned back on, the loading position returns to its factory setting.

3-12 Using the Printer

Adjusting the Loading Position

Using Micro-adjustment

1. Make sure that the printer is turned on and that either a single sheet or continuous paper is ready to be loaded.

2. Press the LOAD/EJECT button to feed paper to the loading position.

Then press the ON LINE button; the MULTI-PART light begins to blink.

I:::: MULTI -

PART

Note: You can use the FORM FEED and LINE FEED buttons for micro-adjustment only while the MULTI-PART light is blinking.

Using the Printer 3-13

Adjusting the Loading Position

3. Press the FORM FEED button to feed the paper forward or the LINE

FEED button to feed the paper backward.

Note: When the paper reaches the factory-set loading position, the printer beeps and micro-adjustment feeding pauses for a moment before continuing. You can use this factory setting as a reference point when adjusting the printer’s loading position.

When the paper reaches either the minimum or maximum top margin, the printer beeps and the paper stops moving.

3-14 Using the Printer

Using Short Tear-Off

When you are finished printing, the short tear-off feature automatically feeds the perforation of the continuous paper to the tear-off edge of the printer cover so that you can tear off the last sheet. When you resume printing, the paper feeds backward to the loading position. This feature lets you save the paper normally lost between documents.

To use this feature, set DIP switch 2-2 to on, and make sure that the length of the continuous paper matches the length set by DIP switch

2-1. Then load continuous paper in the normal way.

CAUTION:

To change the setting of a DIP switch, first turn off the printer, change the DIP switch setting, and then turn the printer back on.

You can leave the short tear-off feature turned on (DIP switch

2-2 even when you are using single sheets. When you move the paper on) release lever to the single-sheet position, the short tear-off feature is disabled.

WARNING:

Never use short tear-off with labels. Otherwise, labels may come off their backing and jam the printer.

When you have finished printing, if the perforation is at the top of form position, the printer automatically feeds the perforation of the continuous paper to the tear-off edge of the printer cover. You can then tear off the page using the tear-off edge as shown on the next page.

Using the Printer 3-15

Using Short Tear-Of

If the page perforation is not properly aligned with the tear-off edge, you can adjust the tear-off position using micro-adjustment, as described below.

Note: Short tear-off is not performed unless printing of a page is completed and the paper has advanced to the top of the next page.

When you resume printing after tearing off the sheet, the paper automatically feeds backward to the loading position before printing begins.

Adjusting the Tear-off Position

If the paper‘s perforation does not meet the tear-off edge, you can adjust the tear-off position using the micro-adjustment feature.

3-16 Using the Printer

Using Short Tear-Off

1. Make sure the printer feeds the paper to printing the document.

the tear-off position after

2.

The MULTI-PART light should begin blinking, indicating that you can now use the micro-adjustment feature to make fine adjustments to the tear-off position.

Using the Printer 3 - 1 7

Using Short Tear-Off

3. To make fine adjustments to the tear-off position, press the FORM

FEED button to feed the paper forward or the LINE FEED button to feed it backward.

You can now tear off your document from the perforation and resume printing. The printer remembers this new tear-off position even after the printer is turned off and on again.

3-18 Using the Printer

Selecting Typestyles

You can produce a wide range of typestyles by selecting different character fonts, widths, and other enhancements from the SelecType control panel or by using software commands. This section describes only the features controlled by SelecType. To use software commands, see the Command Summary in Chapter 9.

You can use the SelecType section of the control panel to choose fonts and condensed printing. Orange lights indicate which features you have chosen. For example, if both indicator lights are lit, the slot is selected for your optional font cartridge (if one is installed).

On SANS SERIF ma SLOT

I

FONT

0 CONDENSED

DJ

I

Using the Printer 3-19

Selecting Typestyles

Note: The settings you select using the SelecType panel remain valid until the printer is turned off or until it receives other instructions from software. Some application programs, however, are designed to control all typestyle functions, These programs cancel all previous typestyle settings by sending certain software commands before printing. Because these commands override SelecType settings, you should use the program’s print options instead of SelecType to select your typestyles. If SelecType does not work with a particular application, check your software manual for instructions on selecting typestyles.

Character Fonts

Your printer has three built-in fonts:

DRAFT

ROMAN

'"#$%&'()*t,-./0123456789:;<=>?BABCDEFGHIJK

LMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'F§^-'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv

SANS SERIF

3-20 Using the Printer

Selecting Typestyles

The DRAFT mode uses fewer dots per character for high-speed printing, which makes it ideal for rough drafts and editing work.

ROMAN and SANS SERIF are Letter Quality (LQ) fonts. Letter Quality takes a little longer to print, but produces nicely formed characters suitable for most documentation requirements.

Other fonts are available on optional font cartridges. See Multi-Font

Module in Chapter 5.

Condensed Mode

You can use the condensed mode to change the size of printed characters. In the condensed mode, characters are approximately 60 percent of the width of normal characters. Hence, condensed printing is very useful for spreadsheets and other applications where you need to print the maximum amount of information on a page. You can combine the condensed mode with 10 and 12 cpi printing, but not 15 cpi.

To select the condensed mode, simply press the CONDENSED button so that the orange indicator light comes on. To turn off the condensed mode, press the button again.

The following printout compares normal 10 and 12 cpi with condensed

10 and 12 cpi. The condensed 10 cpi is 17 cpi, and the condensed 12 cpi is 20 cpi.

This is 10 CPI printing.

This is condensed 10 CPI printing,

This is 12 CPI printing.

This is condensed 12 CPI printing.

Using the Printer 3-21

Selecting an International Character Set

International character sets provide you with the characters and symbols used in other languages. You can select one of eight international character sets by changing the DIP switch settings.

Whenever the printer is turned on, reset, or initialized, the character set selected by the DIP switches becomes the default character set.

To select an international character set, set DIP switches

1-1, 1-2, and

1-3 according to the table below.

This table also shows the characters that differ in each international character set.

Country

0 U.S.A.

1 France

2 Germany

3 U.K.

4 Denmark

5 Sweden

6 Italy

7 Spain

ASCII code hex DIP SW

1-1 1-2 1-3

ON ON ON

ON ON OFF

ON OFF ON

ON OFF OFF

OFF ON ON

OFF ON OFF

OFF OFF ON

OFF OFF OFF

CAUTION:

To change the setting of a DIP switch, first turn off the printer, change the DIP switch setting, and then turn the printer back on.

3-22 Using the Printer

Selecting an International Character Set

In addition to the eight character sets shown on the previous page, the seven international character sets that follow can be selected with a software command: ESC R. For more information, see the Command

Summary in Chapter 9.

Country

8 Japan

9 Norway

10 Denmark II

11 Spain II

12 Latin America

13 Korea

64 Legal

ASCII code hex

23 24 40 5B 5C 5D 5E 60 7B 7C 7D 7E

#$e[vl*‘{ll”

#UtidE0A~f5a?0Etii

#$tis0Aiffsae0Bii

#$BiRi6’ifi6ti

#$diRikiiiii66

#$@rwl*‘{Il’

# $ 5 o ’ Pn q ( Q Q t -

Using the Printer 3-23

Choosing a Character Table

DIP switch 1-7 selects either the italic character table or the Epson

Extended Graphics character table. The Epson Extended Graphics character table contains international accented characters, Greek characters, mathematic symbols, and character graphics for printing lines, corners, and shaded areas.

If you have an IBM ® or IBM-compatible computer, select the Epson

Extended Graphics table when you wish to print character graphics as they are displayed on the screen. Even if you select Epson Character

Graphics, you can still print ordinary text and italics. For italics, see the description of the ESC 4 command in the Command Summary,

Chapter 9.

Note: In most cases, Epson Extended Graphics is the preferred selection.

Sample printouts of the italic characters and the Epson Extended

Graphics characters are shown below.

Italics

'"#$%&'()*t,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFG

H;JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\l*-'abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvwxyz{/}-

Epson Extended Graphics

3-24 Using the Printer

Choosing a Character Table

To select a character table, set DIP switch 1-7 according to the table below.

CAUTION: To change the setting of a DIP switch, first turn off the printer, change the DIP switch, and then turn the printer back on.

Tables showing which characters are printed in each of the character tables are listed in the Appendix.

Using the Printer 3-25

Using the Data Dump Mode

The data dump mode is a special feature that makes it easy for experienced users to identify the cause of communication problems between the printer and application programs. The data dump mode gives a printout of the codes reaching the printer.

To use the data dump mode, follow these steps:

1. Make sure that the printer is loaded with either single-sheet or continuous paper.

3-26 Using the Printer

Using the Data Dump Mode

2. If the printer is on, switch it off, then hold down the FORM FEED and LINE FEED buttons at the same time you turn on the printer.

3. Run any program that causes the printer to print (either an application program or one in any programming language). Your printer prints out all the codes sent to the printer, as shown below.

(In order to print the last line, you will have to take the printer off line.)

1 B 4 0 1 B 5 2 0 0 1 B 7 4 0 1

2 0 2 0 5 4 6 8 6 9 7 3 2 0 6 ’

6 D 7 0 6 C 6 5 2 0 6 F 6 6

7 5 6 D 7 0 2 0 7 0 7 2 6 9

6 9 7 3 2 0 6 6 6 5 6 1 7 4

0 A 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 6 9

1 B 5 0 1 B 7 0 0 0

6 E 2 0 6 5 7 8 6 1

6 1 7 4 6 1 2 0 6 4

7 5 7 4 2 E 2 0 5 4 6 8

5 2 0 6 D 6 1 6 B 6 5 7 3

5 6 1 7 3 7 9 2 0 6 6 6 F

. @ . R . . t . . 6 . . P . p .

T h i s i s a n e x a m p l e o f a d a t a d

“ m P p r i n t o u t . T h i s f e a t u r e m a k e s

i t e a s y f o

On the left side of the printout all the codes are printed in hexadecimal format. On the right side of the printout all printable characters are printed, and others, such as control codes, are represented by dots.

Using the Printer 3-27

Using the Data Dump Mode

4. To turn off the data dump mode after you have taken the printer off line, turn off the printer.

By comparing the characters printed in the text field on the right side of the data dump printout (see step 3) with the printout of hex codes, you can check which codes are being sent to the printer.

To interpret the data dump printout, examine the first three hex codes on the second line of the printout sample (20 20 54). Each hex code 20 represents a space; hex code 54 represents the letter T. Check the second line of the text field on the right side of the printout and you will find the letter T preceded by two spaces.

The chart below interprets the first eight codes.

Hex codes

1B40

1B5200

1B7401

Command

ESC

ESC R 0

ESC t1

Function

Initialize printer

Select USA character set

Select Epson Extended Graphics set

3-28 Using the Printer