Microsoft KB Archive/43163

Word: Foreign Character Fonts on Epson Printers

PSS ID Number: Q43163 Article last modified on 11-02-1994

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= SUMMARY =

On many of the Epson printers, the USASCII extended character set from decimal code 128 to 160 is reserved and cannot be printed directly.

Word printer drivers use a character translation table to create foreign characters that normally are available in this range. These characters may not directly correspond to the foreign character sets that are internal to the printer.

The following specific example demonstrates how to gain access to the Latin American character set internal to the printer (this same method would be used to access other foreign character sets by substituting the appropriate escape codes):

The escape code to access the Epson foreign character sets is

ESC R (n)

where n = 0 (USA) the ASCII code is @ n = 12 (Latin American) the ASCII code is ^L

One method is to modify the printer driver file by entering in the escape code for the foreign character set as byte 0. For the Latin American set, this would be as follows:

byte:0 mod:0 “[RL”

This would result in utilizing only one foreign character set at a time. The IBM US characters would appear on the screen while the foreign set would be printed on the printer.

Another method is to add a new font description to the printer driver file. The “beginmod:0” line would contain the escape code for the foreign character set, and the “endmod:0” line would return to the default font (USA) set. For example, the following is a font description for accessing the 12-point font named LatinAmerican:

{F6 CTP:T1 cPSDs:1

FontSize:24 Wtps:12 12 12 12 beginmod:0 “[RL” endmod:0 “[R@” beginItalicmod:0 endItalicmod:0 beginBoldmod:0 endBoldmod:0 beginItalBoldmod:0 endItalBlodmod:0 DLF:0 FontName:LatinAmerican }F

This method will allow formatting of the different International character sets in one document.

The Epson printer manual contains a table that shows which ASCII value corresponds to which International character.

KBCategory: kbother KBSubcategory: Additional reference words:

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================================================================ Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1994.