Datamax-O'Neil PrintPAD AN-04 (LP) - Manual

AN-04 (LP)
September 23, 2005
HOW TO PRINT BITMAP GRAPHICS IN LINE PRINTER MODE
This document describes how to print bitmapped graphics in Line Printer mode. Two other graphics mode are
available. One is RLE compressed graphics (see AN-05) and downloaded .PCX graphics printed from Easy Print (see
AN-09).
Using the ESC V n1n2 <data> to send graphics to be printed one time (and not stored) is really extremely simple, and is
virtually identical to the way most graphic commands have worked on many different printers for years. It is used to
print a bitmap graphic on the fly, where the image is to be printed once and then discarded rather than to be stored and
printed again and again. The ESC V n1n2 precedes the actual bitmap data that forms the picture. The ESC V tells the
printer to enter a graphics mode, the n1n2 tells the printer how tall the graphics image is.
A bit map graphic is an image composed of individual bits in bytes, each bit representing a pixel (or picture element) in
the image, and the bytes laid end to end from left to right, then stacked, making up the image a series of very thin strips
going across the image from left to right and from top to bottom.
For example, if you look at the image below, you can see a diamond with a rectangle inside (you might need a little
imagination), composed of individual pixels each the size of one letter. We’ll let a space represent a white pixel, and an
X represent a black pixel:
XXXX
XXXXXXXX
XX XX
XX XXXX XX
XX XXXX XX
XX XXXX XX
XX XXXX XX
XX XXXX XX
XX XX
XXXXXXXX
XXXX