HP - ESC commands

[Delfin]

Is HP printers (laserjet & deskjet0 have a set or ESC commands like what Epson printers have? My purpose on this is to compress a printout using the software commands under DOS application.

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

HP printers (since the early 80's) use a language called PCL (Printer Control Language) which is ASCII with escape sequences to control special functions. All these escape sequences are documented in the printer technical reference manuals, or in HP's web pages:

http://www.hp.com/cposupport/printers/support_doc/bpl02705.html

To compress a fixed font, use:

Ec&k2S

where Ec is the single character ESC. For other spacing:

10 cpi Ec&k0S
12 cpi Ec&k4S

Reset printer to default: EcE

There are several *dozen* models of HP printers and about 6 flavors of PCL. The above sequences work on all of them. When you begin manipulating the other features, some sequences may not apply or may have different values.