About escape sequences that specify printer-resident fonts

Escape sequences specify characteristics about fonts, which are listed in the order in which they are conventionally specified in the escape sequence:

  • Text-parsing method that specifies whether character codes are interpreted as 1-byte or 2-byte character codes. (See Text-parsing method for fonts.)

  • Character encoding or symbol set of the font family, such as ISO-8859-1, Windows 3.0 (Latin 2), and Big5. (See Character encoding.)

  • Font spacing, which can be constant or proportional. (See Font characteristics.)

  • Font pitch (monospace fonts) or height (variable-width fonts). The value must be supplied as the fontPitch or fontSize variable, depending on the type of font. When the form is printed, these variables are replaced with the specific settings that are specified in the form itself. (See Font characteristics.)

    fontPitch
    Specifies pitch or characters per inch. Use this variable for monospace fonts such as Courier and Letter Gothic. If you omit this variable from a typeface definition, the default printer value is used. If you hardcode this value in your escape sequence, only the printer-installed font with that characteristic is used.

    fontSize
    Specifies font height. Use this variable for variable-width fonts such as Times New Roman. If you omit this variable from a typeface definition, the default printer value is used. If you hardcode this value in your escape sequence, only the printer-installed font with that characteristic is used.

  • Style, such as upright, italic, or condensed. If not specified, the upright style is used. (See Font characteristics.)

  • Stroke weight, such as normal and bold. If not specified, the normal stroke weight is used. (See Font characteristics.)

  • Font family, such as Courier and Coronet. (See Font characteristics.)

    Most printer manuals provide the escape sequences to use to specify fonts. (See Finding documentation for your printer.)

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