LASERJET

Models

This driver produces output suitable for any printer that can interpret Hewlett-Packard’s PCL page description language, such as the Laserjet Series II devices.

Laserjet printers have a maximum resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi), but can also work at 150, 100 or 75 dpi

Description

Laserjet and compatible printers may be used to produce black and white hard copy from graphical plot files. The PCL language has no facilities for expressing graphical elements such as vectors; it provides instead a group of raster graphics commands.

Output

The output from this driver is in device code that may be sent directly to any PCL-compatible laser printer. Where the output is to a file, it contains the complete PCL code needed to reproduce the printable document defined by the pseudo-code plot file. This comprises a mixture of PCL command escape sequences and 8-bit data that is not formatted and not easy to inspect.

The Laserjet driver uses compression techniques to reduce the size of its output files and, hence, the time needed to send them to the printer. Further reductions in file size and data transfer time may be achieved by specifying a lower raster graphics resolution (that means, a lower dpi setting).

When multiple copies of a drawing are required, use of the COPIES option gives increased speed by using the inbuilt printer facilities rather than by repeated data transmission.

The drawing is scaled to a size that fills the printable area of an A4 sheet. It is drawn automatically in portrait or landscape orientation to make the best use of the available area.

Options

You can specify the LASERJET driver options either directly, as PLOT command line arguments (see Running PLOT), or indirectly, as parameters in a soft driver definition (see Creating your Own Device Drivers).

The syntax for using each option is as follows (individual options must be separated by commas):

Example