>> How to install, use and uninstall PCL Fonts >>

Things you need to know

The PCL is a language designed by HP for its laser printer line. Every HP laser printer supports PCL. Most Xerox and Lexmark laser printers also support PCL commands. For other products, please contact the vendors for the PCL support.

Install PCL font

The process of transferring PCL fonts from a host computer to the printer RAM is sometimes referred as downloading. The process involves three steps: (1) assign font ID; (2) copy the font in binary form to the printer RAM; (3) Make it permanent.

Once downloaded, a PCL font occupies a portion of user memory (RAM). The number of PCL fonts that can be stored in user memory is limited only by the available user memory.

In the following illustrations we use [ESC] to represent the ESC key. This character is not printable in Windows, but can be inputted using DOS EDIT. Open the text file in EDIT, press key P while holding the CTRL key, then release both keys. The EDIT program displays the ESC character with a left arrow followed by an asterisk.

1. Font ID command

Prior to the font installation, the user must issues a Font ID command to specify an ID number for the subsequent font management tasks such as font downloads, selections and deletions.

[ESC]*c#D
 # - ID number
Note – if the new font has the same font ID as an existing font, the new font replaces the existing font.

For example, to specify a fond ID number 80, send

[ESC]*c80D

2. Copy the PCL font to the printer

In DOS, UNIX, AS/400 and other platforms, this step is performed by issuing COPY command with binary parameter.

To copy the font to a local printer, the command is:

COPY/B filename LPT1

Here LPT1 is the local printer port.

To copy the font to a network printer, replace the port with full path of the network printer, such as:

COPY/b filename \\morovia-server\hp-laser

3. Make the font permanent

Once downloaded, a font is designated as temporary. A temporary PCL font is removed from the user memory during a printer reset or a self-test is performed. To prevent the printer from deleting it during a printer reset you need to make it permanent.

The command is

[ESC]*c5F

Note that the font resides in the printer's RAM; it can not survive a power outage or a printer reboot. To make sure that the font is always available, send the font before sending any print job. The font sent at the latter time overrides previous one.

After the font is successfully installed, you can use the font by issuing Font Selection command. The command

[ESC](80X

Selects the font we just installed. Here 80 is the font ID of the font we just installed.

To switch back to the default font, using the command:

[ESC](3@

The command of deleting a PCL font takes the form:

[ESC]*c#d2F

# - Font ID

For example, the following command removes the font we just installed (Font ID 80)

[ESC]*c80d2F

Example

This example demonstrates installing and using the PCL font. You can download the package by clicking here (zip file, 91,181 bytes). The package contains: 

font-id.txt – this file contains a single font ID command. We use number 80 as the font ID.
code39ma.pcl – The demo version of Code39 MA PCL font.
set-font.txt – this file contains a single command – make the font permanent 
contents.txt – this file contains the data to be printed, as well as the command of using the font.

test.bat – this file contains a single COPY command which copies the files above one by one to the printer:

COPY /B +font-id.txt +code39ma.pcl + set-font.txt + contents.txt LPT1

If your printer is not hooked to LPT1, or it is a network printer, substitute LPT1 with the appropriate port name or network path.

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How to install, use and uninstall PCL Fonts