HP-UX 11i v3 International Printing Features

38
Appendix A: Common Printer Control Languages
ESC/P
The ESC/P printer control language was originally created by Epson to control their dot-matrix
printers. It is now a de facto standard for dot-matrix printers from various printer manufacturers.
The ESC/P printer control language is an escape sequences and control characters based printer
control language. Different control characters and escape sequences are used to activate and
deactivate different features of the printers. For example, the escape sequence “ESC 0” is used to
select 1/8-inch line spacing. Dozens of different escape sequences and a selected number of control
characters are defined in this printer control language.
HP-GL
The Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language (HP-GL) is a vector-based printer control language, whereas
most other common printer control languages are raster-based. This is a de facto standard for almost
all plotters. The language is formed from a series of two letter codes, followed by optional
parameters.
HP-GL/2 is part of the HP PCL5 language.
LIPS
Both LIPS III and LIPS IV are different versions of the same printer control language created by Canon
for its printers. Like ESC/P, they are escape sequences and control characters base printer control
languages.
PCL
HP developed the PCL (Printer Command Language) printer language to standardize access to printer
features. It has become a de facto industry standard that is also supported by other printer
manufacturers.
PCL levels 1 through 5e/5c are escape-sequenced based languages like ESC/P that are processed
and interpreted in the order they are received.
PCL6 consists of mainly the following two components:
• PCL6 Enhanced
• PCL6 Standard
PCL6 Standard is equivalent to PC5e/5c for providing backward compatibility. PCL6e Enhanced is a
stack-based, object-oriented protocol similar to PostScript. However, it uses binary binding as
opposed to ASCII binding in PostScript. In other words, commands are expressed in binary operators
rather than ASCII text.
The currently supported PCL levels are:
• PCL3+ (mono) and PCL3c+ (color) for HP DeskJet and HP PhotoSmart products.
• PCL3GUI for HP DesignJet and some DeskJet series printers.
• PCL5e (PCL5 enhanced) for monochrome LaserJet printers
• PCL5c for color LaserJet printers
• PCL6 for newer LaserJet printers
Support of PCL5 and especially PCL6 requires more processing resource on the printer side.
Therefore, less work is needed on the driver side. PCL3 and its derivatives are simpler and require
less processing resource on the printer side. However, the driver must perform more tasks to render
the page before sending the command sequences to the printer.