Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of Al Phillips
Al Phillips

asked on

Creating a PCL escape command

I am attempting to create a bat file to test tray calls on different printers.
I often deal with programs that require a tray call instead of using a print driver. The idea being to use the batch file to combine a pcl command file with a text file, and pull from different printer trays.
 In the old days we would use Edit.com and Ctrl+P Esc to insert the Escape required, however that program is gone. What can we use to create this character in a Windows 10 system? I have tried notepad++ without success.
Has anyone experience with an application already out there to do this?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Bill Prew
Bill Prew

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
On the assumption that you are referring to PCL5 escape sequences (and presumably because your "... programs that require a tray call instead of using a print driver ..." are generating print jobs using this Page Description Language), then you could make use of the Tray Map tool in the (Windows .net) PCL Paraphernalia application (available via http://www.pclparaphernalia.eu) to test out combinations of one or more of Paper Size (e.g. Letter or A4), Paper Type (e.g. Plain or Letterhead) and Paper Source (tray identifier).

You can 'print' the test jobs to a file instead of to the target printer, and then analyse the file (to see what has been generated) using the PRN File Analyse tool in the same application.

.... and even those printers (mainly inkjet devices) which use the PCL3 GUI or PCL3 Enhanced PDLs (rather than PCL5) probably support a few PCL5 escape sequences (including the paper size and paper source sequences).
Avatar of Al Phillips
Al Phillips

ASKER

Thank you. The Character set was the component i was missing.

net use lpt2: \\192.168.9.8\printer
print /D:LPT2 D:\printtest.txt

printtest.txt
&l2H
test test