For those of you who use Epson printers extensively,
you may wish to have some means of making printouts look
more professional, a little more flashy, maybe even
striking. Just plain old print fonts don't do much for me,
but they do transmit information. There is a SuperVUE
glossary file that you can use to dress up your files and
make them appear a little bit better. (Note: this
glossary will not make you a better writer or improve your
dry old report into a Pulitzer Prize winner, it will only
make them look better.) This glossary allows you to imbed
within your document control characters to change the font
to normal, emphasized, double strike, double width,
compressed, headline, italics, subscript and superscript,
and a compressed line size. You may find it handy.
To begin, you must load the glossary into your memory
while editing a file. This is done from the command mode:
>GLOSS EPSON <CR>
(as always, upper or lower case are immaterial. Spelling
is material, however. Any time you are required to type
something, the proper format will be underscored.
Depressing the RETURN key is signified with <CR>. Anytime
you are to depress the Control key along with another key,
the format given is ^G. This means "hold the control key
down while pressing the letter G key down.")
After pressing the return key, the screen will display
the following menu:
G EPSON.GLS Print mode Options
A Regular line spacing (6 lines / inch)
B Bold headline (one line only)
C Compressed mode
D Double strike
E Emphasized text
F Narrow line spacing (10 lines / inch)
I Italics on
L Elite mode
M Cancel Elite mode
N Normal text
O Italics off
P Super Script a line
S Sub Script a line
W Double width mode on (more than one line)
X Double width mode off
If you ever want to see the options from where ever you are
in your document (you don't have to be in the command
mode), simply press ^GG to have the menu displayed. It
will appear right in the middle of your text, but don't
panic, it is only on your screen. If you were very
observant, when you pressed ^G, a little G character
appeared in the upper right hand corner of your screen.
This is to tell you that the next character you press will
be processed by the Glossary. If it finds a match from the
list above, it will do whatever the glossary program says
to do. If no match is found, it then pretends nothing
happened and continues in the editing mode.
The EPSON glossary inserts special text into your
document in the form of dot commands. In reality, you
could do everything that this glossary does by hand after
reading this, but I have a poor memory and am even a poorer
typist. It is easier for me to let a program insert
special codes into the document and know that it is done
right each time. The remainder of this document will
discuss what happens when you hit ^G followed by one of the
listed letters.
YOU MUST BE IN THE EDIT MODE (i.e., have the text of
your report on the screen) TO USE THESE COMMANDS PROPERLY.
I. General font control modes
^GN Normal text
Glossary response: .control ^R^[H^[F
This font is the normal text that is
used for most draft copies turned
out. It prints at 10 characters per
inch (CPI), high printing speed, and
good readability.
This is the same as above but prints at
17 CPI. This cannot be mixed with
emphasized or doublestrike modes can
be mixed with italics, double width,
underline, sub- and superscript.
You must change the .margin command by
a factor of 1.7 to have this mode to
print out properly. For example, the
margin for this document was set at 8
for normal text. To have the compressed
mode print out in the same margins the
.margin 14 command was given (8 x 1.7 =
14 approximately). It is very useful for
printing out wide tables or to serve as
"fine print" on a contract.
^GL Elite mode
Glossary response: .control ^R^[M
This print mode is really nice for those
tables that are just slightly larger
than regular pica margins will allow.
Elite size characters are placed at 12
per inch (as opposed to 10), thus you
can fit a table that is 72 characters
wide in a 60 character pica space.
Emphasized and condensed modes cannot be
mixed with elite. Also, to get any of
the other print modes to work properly,
you must CANCEL the elite mode with ^GM
Glossary response: .control ^[P
This sets the print back to the most
previous setting, in this case, Normal.
^GE Emphasized text
Glossary response: .control ^R^[H^[F^[E
Emphasized font is darker and still
prints with fair rapidity. It cannot be
used with compressed mode. This type is
acceptable to the Graduate College as
final quality type. You can also use
this to emphasize a section of your
report or for section titles by going
from Emphasized to normal and back.
In double strike, the print head passes
over each line twice, slightly offset by
one dot. This can be used in
conjunction with Emphasized text to make
very dark print. Printing speed is
slow, however. This, too, is accepted
by the Graduate College as final quality
type.
^GW Double width mode (more than one line)
Glossary response: .control ^[W1
This font is precisely the opposite of
compressed mode. If you are presently
printing using 10 CPI, double width
mode will print in 5 CPI. It will be in
effect until you turn it off with ^GX
(Glossary response: .control ^[W0)
When used in conjunction with compressed
mode, the effect is kind of nice. Not
awesome, but nice.
Once again, you must modify the ruler
and the .margin command to make sure
that your text will fit on the page when
it is printed.
^GI Italics on
Glossary response: .control ^[4
Italics are nice and can be used in
conjunction with any of the above print
modes. This is being printed as a
combination of Emphasized and Italics.
To stop this mode, you must use the ^GO
(Glossary response: .control ^[5)
to get back to the previously assigned
font.
II. Special effects
^GB Bold headline (one line only)
Glossary response: .control ^R^[G^[E^N
The bold headline is a one line at a
time mode that is a combination of
double width, double strike, and
emphasized mode, all at once. Once
again, reduce the left hand margin and
be careful of the right hand margin
because all characters (even spaces) are
double width.
Be sure to re-assign your preferred
printing font immediately after using
this mode. The printer will stay in
double strike, emphasized mode after
this line is printed but will shift out
of double width.
^GP Super Script a line
Glossary response: .control ^[S0
.nofeed
.control ^[T
This one is different from all the rest
and takes a little more explaining.
There are four lines of codes generated:
the .control line, a .NOFEED line, a
blank line, and then another .control
line. Perhaps an example would work
best.
Say, for example, you had the following
formula that you wanted to express using
a superscript:
My original hypothesis (E = mc3) was
wrong.
To make the 3 an exponent, you must have
the 3 on a separate line, like this:
3
My original hypothesis (E = mc ) was
wrong.
Now with the cursor on the same line as
the 3, press ^GP which gives the
following lines:
.control ^[S0
.nofeed
3
.control ^[T
My original hypothesis (E = mc ) was
wrong.
The printer is shifted into superscript
mode, no line feed will be sent after
printing the 3, the superscript mode is
turned off, and then the rest of the
line is printed around the 3.
Confused? Trust me, it works.
^GS Sub Script a line
Glossary response: .control ^[S1
.nofeed
.control ^[T
This is exactly the same as
superscripting but the results are a
subscript.
Just remember, have the cursor on the
line that you wish to have printed as
either sub- or superscript and then hit
the ^G option for either one of these
switches. Whether the artical is to be
either sub- or superscripted, it should
be ABOVE the main line of text, just as
in the superscripting examples.
^GA Normal line spacing
Glossary response: .control ^[2
Normally, you will want to have your
text printed using the normal
linespacing (the distance between lines
vertically on the page). If there has
been some mad programmer on the system,
one of those programs may have altered
the line spacing and you may have to set
it back to normal. This glossary will
not be used 99 44/100% of the time, but
it is included because of the next
command.
Occasionally, you may wish to draw a
picture, or a map, or some such object
that would look better if the space
between the lines was not there. This
command will perform that function.
For example, say you wanted to have the
following diagram in your text:
0123456789
1 |..........|
2 | | A 10 X 10
3 | |
4 | |
5 | | Matrix with a point at
6 | |
7 | |
8 | x | coordinates 8,5.
9 | |
10 |..........|
Doesn't look very square, does it? By
changing the line spacing using ^GF , it
now prints out to be square.
You just must be sure to set the line
spacing back to normal after using this
option using ^GA .
(WARNING: Although SuperVUE is a pretty
smart program, it is not smart enough to
know that you have changed the line
spacing in your output file from 66
lines per page to 110 lines. Therefore,
a page break will be issued several
lines early, depending upon how many
lines were included in the narrow line
spacing mode. If you have a large
diagram, you may need to alter the
length of the document for that page
only using the .LENGTH or .STRETCH
commands. See the SuperVUE manual for
an explanation of those commands.
Now that you have all of those handy control codes
imbedded in your document, you are ready to print, right?
WRONG!!!
Just one more important matter: the last font control
in your document should be a ^GN to set the printer back to
normal print. This will relieve many printer problems with
people printing something on a font that they did not
chose. Also, the safe method of being sure that your
document is printed correctly is to set the print font at
the very beginning, assume nothing good is out there.
