Printer problem - changing font size

[Steve Ferrara]

We have a report that is automatically printed to an hplj4100. Since this report has been automated, the font is very small and the users are complaining. All other printouts are fine (the font size is ok) from this printer.

How can I rectify this situation. Do I need to download a new driver for the printer or is this where soft fonts come into play. I have little experience with configuring printers if you can't tell already.

Any help would be much appreciated...

[Denver Osborn]

can you give more detail? What's the OS and how's the print job send to the printer? Commands being used, etc...

-denver

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

I assume this is a UNIX question and probably a JetDirect connected printer.

Drivers in the sense that you mean are not used; instead an "interface" file (which is almost always a shell script) is used to control the printer. Look in /var/spool/lp/interface. You should see a file of the same name as your print queue. There will probably also be a file of the same name in the "model.orig" directory just below your current directory. In most cases, you can invoke a print job with -ooptions to display the available options.

echo "test" | lp -dmyprinter -ooptions

The text size defaults to that selected on the front-panel but can be overriden. You make wish to modify the existing interface file to assert a fixed text size.

Because this is a custom report and it is using a small font that suggests most strongly that the application itself is sending escape sequences to the printer. It is also possible that this report is the only one that write to this print queue and a different default text size id used. You can have multiple queues using the same physical printer.

You may have to go into the interface file and have it copy the output to a file so that you can examine the raw data stream.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

The other thing that may be occurring if the same queue is being used and only this report is bad is that this particular report is being used with lp -o options and everything else is simply using the defaults. If you can post the actual lp commands of bad a "bad" and "good" report that would help.

It would also help to know if this is a plain text file or are you using graphics and multiple fonts.

[Bill Hassell]

The LaserJet 4100 has a front panel and buttons, two features that create a LOT of problems for plain ASCII printouts. Unlike Windows, HP-UX does not have a printer subsystem to setup each print job as far as fonts, orientation, etc. If you print a plain ASCII file such as /etc/hosts, nothing but the reset code plus the ASCI text goes to the printer. SO you get the current default font in the printer. Since the mid 1980's, the default font in HP LaserJets is a 10cpi Courier font which will produce about 80 characters across the page of an 8.5x11 piece of paper.

So start by verifying the default font in the printer. There are dozens of menu layouts so you'll have to check with the 4100 owner's manual how to set the default font (PCL FONT=0) and character size (PCL FONT PITCH=10). Or, you can reset the printer back to factory defaults by selecting RESTORE FACTORY DEFAULTS from the front panel.

Of course, someone may have set different values for a reason and in the old days of one computer, one printer, that might be useful. But today with LAN-based printers and print servers, it makes no sense to manually change the printer's dedfault font. So just in case you aren't allowed to change the printer settings, you can use the -o options to set the font, pitch and line spacing. These will override the printer's defaults but only for one job.

[Steve Ferrara]

Guys,

This is the response I'm getting from the application team. Does this make any sense to you what they're asking for?

"We don't have any info. or competency to understand the printer manual at hardware level. What we need is simply a different initialisation string for a different driver with higher font size.

We don't want to setup each print job with different font at HP-UX level. We can accomplish this at Oracle level if you could provide us the initialisation string and driver for that."