Overview

This section provides a quick overview of the Printer Command Language (PCL) formatter. The PCL formatter is used with both monochromatic and color PCL printers.

Note that the PCL Formatter performs image processing on the host system (HP-UX), rather than within the printer/plotter. Since newer generations of printers/plotters have special hardware devoted to quickly generating high quality images, you should use the PCL Imaging Formatter (see Chapter 4 “Printer Command Language Imaging Formatter ”) that takes advantage of these capabilities instead of the PCL Formatter.

In this document, "bitmap" is used to denote a rectangular array of pixels, and can be either a device's frame buffer or an image in memory created by the Starbase Memory Driver. "Starbase bitmap file" is used to denote a bitmap file created by the Starbase procedures bitmap_to_file or dcbitmap_to_file. The key points are:

This formatter permits hard copies from a bitmap or a Starbase bitmap file to a color or monocromatic PCL format printer. The entire bitmap or a subrectangle of the bitmap can be processed and printed. The chapter "Storing Retrieving, and Printing Images" in the Starbase Graphics Techniques manual (HP-UX Concepts and Tutorials) should be read prior to reading this document.
The following monochromatic PCL printers are supported^[17]:
- ThinkJet
- SprintJet
- QuietJet and QuietJet Plus
- DeskJet 500
- LaserJet and LaserJet Plus
- LaserJet II
- LaserJet IID
- LaserJet III, IIID, IIISi, and IIIP
- LaserJet 4, 4Si, 4L, 4P, 4PJ, and 4 Plus
- Asian System Printer
- Asian Serial Printer
The following color PCL printers are currently supported:
- PaintJet (color)
- PaintJet XL (color)
- PaintJet XL-300 (PCL-5 mode)
- DeskJet 500C, 520C, 550C, 560C, and 1200C
- Color LaserJet
Prints can be done in gray scale, monochromatic (black and white), primary (red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, black, white), or in color.
The PCL formatter is not a Starbase driver. In other words, you don't do moves, draws, etc. to the PCL printer. What you can do is:
- Process and print an already existing image on the bitmap to a color or monochromatic PCL printer with bitmap_print or the HP-UX command screenpr (see the Starbase Reference manual).
- Process and print an existing bitmap image from a Starbase bitmap file to a color or monochromatic PCL printer with file_print or the HP-UX command pcltrans (see the Starbase Reference manual).
The color version of this formatter includes the full monochromatic capabilities.
Graphics prints can be done in 4 ways:
- Use Starbase procedures to print from a bitmap or Starbase bitmap file under the control of the program which originally creates the bitmap or file.
- A program other than that which originally creates the bitmap or file can be used in one of two ways.
  Use the Starbase procedure gopen without INIT followed by the Starbase procedure bitmap_print to print a currently displayed bitmap.
  Use the Starbase procedure file_print to print a previously created Starbase bitmap file.
- HP provides an HP-UX command — screenpr — which can be used to print a currently displayed bitmap. The HP-UX command screenpr (see the Starbase Reference) is used to print a currently displayed bitmap.
  The following graphics devices:
  HCRX (all models)
  CRX-48Z
  Internal Color Graphics.
  allow screenpr to correctly print both image and overlay planes for the screen. Graphics devices that only allow screenpr to correctly print image planes for the screen are:
  CRX (all models except the CRX-48Z)
  PersonalVRX
  TurboVRX
  Integrated Graphics Workstations
- Use pcltrans, an HP-UX command (see the Starbase Reference manual), to spool a Starbase bitmap file to the printer. This is typically used when the printer is shared, although it can be used on a single-user system to do graphics prints in background.

^[17]Note that Hewlett-Packard frequently releases new devices that take advantage of the latest printer and plotter technologies. Therefore, this list of supported PCL devices may be incomplete.

Overview

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