User guide Emulations120EmulationsGeneral When a printer understands the control set written for another printertype, it is said to emulate the other printer. Your printer in its stan-dard version emulates, i.e. “understands” the DEC-PPL2 for the se-rial interface and Epson ESC/P2 using the parallel interface.Escape sequences Escape sequences or control codes tell the printer that the followingtransmitted code is a printer command and not a printable character.They allow the selection of printer functions or the changing of prin-ter parameters from the computer. By transmitting an escape se-quence, you are able to change the previously set configuration ofthe printer (e.g. character set).This chapter contains an introduction into the sequences and controlcodes which are used by your printer.The settings made by escape sequences have priority over thesettings made in Menu mode; therefore they override these.What are escapesequences?An escape sequence consists of an ESCape control character (ESC= decimal 27 or hexadecimal 1B) followed by one or more charac-ters, which represent commands to the printer. Please note that thisescape character has nothing to do with the ESC key on your com-puter keyboard.For example, the control character ESC followed by the character“4” tells your printer to print the subsequent text in italics.How are escapesequences used?Escape sequences are transmitted to the printer by your computersoftware via the printer driver. Experienced users and programmerscan also control the printer directly via control sequences, howeverbefore you start working with escape sequences and control codes,we recommend that you study the computer software manual.To enter control codes the Ctrl key and an ASCII character must bepressed simultaneously. For instance, by pressing Ctrl and J a linefeed is accomplished (it is required to output the character string onthe printer). More information concerning this topic is contained inyour computer software manual and the corresponding Program-mer’s Application Manuals (see section Programming manuals,page 131).For details on the escape sequences in the DEC, EPSON andIBM emulation refer to the Programmer’s Manual on thisCD-ROM.C
