pcl & images

Hi,
maybe this is not the right list where asking this, but I don't have any idea
where to ask otherwise. My problem is that I have a linux machine that
generates PCL prints sent directly to a printer. The document is text only,
but now I want to add the logo of the factory but I don't know how to do
this. I've tried to google but I didn't find anything. Any idea or
suggestion?

Thanks,
Luca

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Luca Ferrari,
fluca1978@infinito.it
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Re: pcl & images

You probably have to work with the program that is creating the PCL files.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Luca Ferrari"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 9:00 AM
Subject: pcl & images


> Hi,
> maybe this is not the right list where asking this, but I don't have any
idea
> where to ask otherwise. My problem is that I have a linux machine that
> generates PCL prints sent directly to a printer. The document is text
only,
> but now I want to add the logo of the factory but I don't know how to do
> this. I've tried to google but I didn't find anything. Any idea or
> suggestion?
>
> Thanks,
> Luca
>
> --
> Luca Ferrari,
> fluca1978@infinito.it
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

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Re: pcl & images

On Tuesday 17 August 2004 16:36 Adam Lang's cat walking on the keyboard
wrote:

> You probably have to work with the program that is creating the PCL files.

Ok, that's right. At the moment I've got a dataflex program which generates
PCL commands outputing all strings, but I don't know which are commands to
include an image and how to use them.

Luca
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fluca1978@infinito.it
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Re: pcl & images

Luca Ferrari said:
> On Tuesday 17 August 2004 16:36 Adam Lang's cat walking on the keyboard
> wrote:
>
>> You probably have to work with the program that is creating the PCL
>> files.
>
> Ok, that's right. At the moment I've got a dataflex program which
> generates PCL commands outputing all strings, but I don't know which are
> commands to include an image and how to use them.

Why didn't you say so in the first place? You can get that info from HP,
or I could retype the HP PCL manual for you if you like. =P

I've done it before and it is not nice, or even pretty. You need to send
a few commands, a bitmap, and yet more commands. Sorry, I don't have the
book with me at the moment, and I'm not really going to type those pages
up for you.

I haven't looked much at it, but this site from a simple google search
might help: http://plcguide.mrplc.com/index.html


for more links:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=PLC+Command+Re ference&btnG=Google+Search&meta=


--
Scott

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Re: pcl & images

Hehe. I don't think you are asking for something trivial. :p PCL is almost
like a programming language. :p
----- Original Message -----
From: "Luca Ferrari"
To:
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 3:34 AM
Subject: Re: pcl & images


> On Tuesday 17 August 2004 16:36 Adam Lang's cat walking on the keyboard
> wrote:
>
> > You probably have to work with the program that is creating the PCL
files.
>
> Ok, that's right. At the moment I've got a dataflex program which
generates
> PCL commands outputing all strings, but I don't know which are commands to
> include an image and how to use them.
>
> Luca
> --
> Luca Ferrari,
> fluca1978@infinito.it
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

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Re: pcl & images

On Saturday 21 August 2004 14:01 Scott Taylor's cat walking on the keyboard
wrote:

> Why didn't you say so in the first place? You can get that info from HP,
> or I could retype the HP PCL manual for you if you like. =P
>
> I've done it before and it is not nice, or even pretty. You need to send
> a few commands, a bitmap, and yet more commands. Sorry, I don't have the
> book with me at the moment, and I'm not really going to type those pages
> up for you.
>

Well, an example will be really appreciated!

> I haven't looked much at it, but this site from a simple google search
> might help: http://plcguide.mrplc.com/index.html
>

Uhm, I'm not an expert of PCL but this seems to be another thing, different
from the HP language for printers. I've googled again and I haven't found
anything about including images in pcl prints, so if you have material please
help me.

Thanks,
Luca

--
Luca Ferrari,
fluca1978@infinito.it
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Re: pcl & images

http://www.nefec.org/UPM/ccPCLfrm.htm

Yeah, he linked ya wrong. :p This is more of what you are looking for.

Not easy. ;)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Luca Ferrari"
To:
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: pcl & images


> On Saturday 21 August 2004 14:01 Scott Taylor's cat walking on the
keyboard
> wrote:
>
> > Why didn't you say so in the first place? You can get that info from
HP,
> > or I could retype the HP PCL manual for you if you like. =P
> >
> > I've done it before and it is not nice, or even pretty. You need to
send
> > a few commands, a bitmap, and yet more commands. Sorry, I don't have
the
> > book with me at the moment, and I'm not really going to type those pages
> > up for you.
> >
>
> Well, an example will be really appreciated!
>
> > I haven't looked much at it, but this site from a simple google search
> > might help: http://plcguide.mrplc.com/index.html
> >
>
> Uhm, I'm not an expert of PCL but this seems to be another thing,
different
> from the HP language for printers. I've googled again and I haven't found
> anything about including images in pcl prints, so if you have material
please
> help me.
>
> Thanks,
> Luca
>
> --
> Luca Ferrari,
> fluca1978@infinito.it
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

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Re: pcl & images

Luca Ferrari said:
> On Saturday 21 August 2004 14:01 Scott Taylor's cat walking on the
> keyboard
> wrote:

I don't own a cat.

>> Why didn't you say so in the first place? You can get that info from
>> HP, or I could retype the HP PCL manual for you if you like. =P
>>
>> I've done it before and it is not nice, or even pretty. You need to
>> send a few commands, a bitmap, and yet more commands. Sorry, I don't
>> have the book with me at the moment, and I'm not really going to type
>> those pages up for you.
>>
>
> Well, an example will be really appreciated!

Well, I'm back at the office today and found the book and it's even
nastier then I remember. The last time I did something like this was over
8 years ago, and that company has since moved away from their legacy UNIX
systems to *blah* some SAP thing and are totally Windoze now. No fun at
all.

>> I haven't looked much at it, but this site from a simple google search
>> might help: http://plcguide.mrplc.com/index.html
>
> Uhm, I'm not an expert of PCL but this seems to be another thing,
> different from the HP language for printers.

You're right, sorry. Just google for "HP Printer Control Language" and
get loads of pages. I'm not about to start reading them for you.

> I've googled again and I haven't found anything about including images in
> pcl prints, so if you have material please help me.

Begging does not become a SysAdmin, hard work and research does. Nobody
is an expert at anything until they figure it out for themselves, all
anyone can offer you, at this point, is direction. I no longer posess
living samples, it was way to long ago and I no longer need PCL for
anything. I charge $100/hr for R&D and for this you would be looking at
about 60 or so hours, if I remember how long it took last time. Not worth
it I would say, much cheaper to have a print shop place the logo on a form
for you, and you just continue to output the text you need.

You really should contact HP, I'm sure they have PCL manuals available.
What I have are old printer manuals, the PCL command syntax is there, but
I wouldn't recommend trying to do anything more then changing fonts.
Raster Graphics are a psychotic race.

Have you tried capturing a PCL file of the graphics you want? That's how
I got started the first time. Try installing print drivers in Windows for
"HP LaserJet 4" and then printing the graphic to a file (instead of LPT1);
there is your sample.

Good luck.

--
Scott

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Re: pcl & images

Adam Lang said:
> http://www.nefec.org/UPM/ccPCLfrm.htm
>
> Yeah, he linked ya wrong. :p This is more of what you are looking for.

haha, oops. That was the next link. Sorry Luca. This site looks exactly
like my HPLJ4 manual, which I wasn't about to retype. ;)

> Not easy. ;)

So true. But that (RTFMing) is what being a SysAdmin/ha>
--
Scott

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Re: pcl & images

On Monday 23 August 2004 17:18 Scott Taylor's cat walking on the keyboard
wrote:

> Luca Ferrari said:
> > On Saturday 21 August 2004 14:01 Scott Taylor's cat walking on the
> > keyboard
> > wrote:
>
> I don't own a cat.
>

You should try to have a cat.

>
> Begging does not become a SysAdmin, hard work and research does. Nobody
> is an expert at anything until they figure it out for themselves, all
> anyone can offer you, at this point, is direction. I no longer posess
> living samples, it was way to long ago and I no longer need PCL for
> anything. I charge $100/hr for R&D and for this you would be looking at
> about 60 or so hours, if I remember how long it took last time. Not worth
> it I would say, much cheaper to have a print shop place the logo on a form
> for you, and you just continue to output the text you need.
>

I've already this, I mean I've already pre-printed pages with the logo and
other stuff, but to make the print cheaper and to have more flexibility I
want to find a way to work with images in my prints.

> Have you tried capturing a PCL file of the graphics you want? That's how
> I got started the first time. Try installing print drivers in Windows for
> "HP LaserJet 4" and then printing the graphic to a file (instead of LPT1);
> there is your sample.

Now I'm working with pcloverlay, merging a pcl image and a pcl file and
printing them together. It seems to work, but the image is partially cut-off
(it seems as a few pixels in the bottom are eat by the other pcl print).

Luca

--
Luca Ferrari,
fluca1978@infinito.it
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Re: pcl & images

Luca Ferrari said:
> On Monday 23 August 2004 17:18 Scott Taylor's cat walking on the keyboard
> wrote:
>
>> Luca Ferrari said:
>> > On Saturday 21 August 2004 14:01 Scott Taylor's cat walking on the
>> > keyboard
>> > wrote:
>>
>> I don't own a cat.
>>
>
> You should try to have a cat.

They make me sneeze, then I just spill my coffee on them.

>
>> Have you tried capturing a PCL file of the graphics you want? That's
>> how I got started the first time. Try installing print drivers in
>> Windows for "HP LaserJet 4" and then printing the graphic to a file
>> (instead of LPT1); there is your sample.
>
> Now I'm working with pcloverlay, merging a pcl image and a pcl file and
> printing them together. It seems to work, but the image is partially
> cut-off
> (it seems as a few pixels in the bottom are eat by the other pcl print).

I seem to remember going through the same. Looks like you are getting
closer. WTG. Try making your graphic margins a little bigger, or perhaps
print a null char or two after the graphic.

--
Scott

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Re: pcl & images

Luca Ferrari wrote:
> On Monday 23 August 2004 17:18 Scott Taylor's cat walking on the keyboard
> wrote:
>

> Now I'm working with pcloverlay, merging a pcl image and a pcl file and
> printing them together. It seems to work, but the image is partially cut-off
> (it seems as a few pixels in the bottom are eat by the other pcl print).

Have you tried adding a few lines of nothing?? Let them get eaten by
the other stuff on the page, and your 'real' image (hopefully)
stays intact.
If that doesn't work, then chances are you'll have to either shrink
your logo a bit, or reformat your text to print a little lower.

Depending on what your PCL program can do, you might also want
to look at laying down the image *AFTER* the text rather than
before. Another option is that (I think) PCL allows you to
specify whether images are laid down by simple writes, or ANDing
or ORing. If the problem is that the character blocks are being
just written, then you MAY be able to set PCI settings to have
that data ORed (at a bit of a speed cost, but that should be
trivial, these days)


Like scott, it's been a long time since I've worked with raw PCL
(about 14 years for me)
--
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http://www.bcgreen.com/~samuel/
Powerful committed communication. Transformation touching
the jewel within each person and bringing it to light.
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