Printer Setup Question OKIDATA

[Paul Hawkins]

Hello, We have a OKIDATA 184 printer for printing cheques. Each time a print is sent from hp-ux we get strange charectors printed top and bottom of the output -- 12345X12345Xk2G

Ive set it up as a network "dump printer".
Any ideas will be gratefully recieved.
Paul

[Keith Bevan_1]

Paul,

This error is sometimes caused by escape code handling in the print job that has been generated by some other application software.


A few simple questions :-

Are you using the lp scheduler ?

Are you running certain scripts to redirect the ouput to the printer ?

Do you have any third party software that is running daemons like axis and prosd ?

What application software are you using ?

Are you using a print server ?

Do you mean 'dumb' printer ?

Keith

[ross martin_2]

Hi Paul,

Some printers have difficulty using the generic dumb model script. Okidata is one of the brands that has such a problem. It has to do with the printer's firmware. Both HP and Okidata are aware of it--but you may need to go back to Okidata and ask them for a model script you can use -- or see if they have a model script that you can add to the directory for where your network printing software model scripts reside. Make sure the permissions/owner/group are the same as the rest of the model scripts.

The other thought is to play with your transparency setting (eg. if it is "off" set it to "on" or vice-versa.

Hope this helps,

Ross

[Bill Hassell]

The characters 12345X12345Xk2G look very much like PCL escape sequences (the escape characters are not printing). If you cd to /usr/lib/lp/model and issue the command:

grep 12345 *

you'll this sequence is used in most HP printer scripts, but not in the dumb printer script. So cd to the active printer directory: /etc/lp/interface and use the same grep on the Okidata printer's script. If you see 12345 in the script, then it isn't the dumb model script, hence the special characters.

NOTE: If the printer's name is not in the interface directory, then this is not a simple printer connected by serial or parallel. Now things get complicated. If this printer is connected to an HP JetDirect External adapter *and* you are using the HP Printer Installer software to setup the printer, the 'real' printer script is located in /etc/lp/interface/model.orig so perform the same grep test on that script. If the Okidata is not connected to the HP at all but is a remote printer on some other computer, then the codes may be coming from the remote computer.