User`s manual

7–12 Digital Emulation
Escape Codes
The control codes discussed in the previous section are single byte control
codes. The number of printer capabilities is greatly increased, however, by
combining character codes into escape sequences. Escape sequences always
begin with the ASCII ESCape character (location 1/11).
An ESC character in the data stream signals the printer to wait for special
instructions. The character codes following the ESC character tell the printer
what to do.
The printer in Digital emulation mode recognizes three escape sequence
formats:
• Escape Sequences
• Control Sequences
• Device Control Strings
Escape Sequences
NOTE: Code sequences appear in this manual with spaces inserted between
command elements. This is done for readability; do not insert spaces
between code characters when you are programming unless the
ASCII space character is part of a code sequence. For example, a
code sequence printed in this manual as ESC [ 1 ; 4 m is
programmed as ESC[1;4m
An escape sequence uses two or more bytes to define a specific printer
control function, but does not include any variable parameters (although
there may be intermediate characters). The format for an escape sequence is:
ESC I
2/0 – 2/15
F
3/0 – 7/14
Escape
Sequence
Introducer
Intermediate
character(s)
Final
character
1/11
After the escape sequence introducer, ESC, intermediate characters may or
may not follow in the sequence. These characters always come from the 2/0
through 2/15 (column/row) range of the DEC Multinational Character Set
(page 7–5). The final character signals the end of the escape sequence and