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Author Topic: EPSON rECEIPT PRINTER IN WINDOWS 8  (Read 2589 times)

epergola

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EPSON rECEIPT PRINTER IN WINDOWS 8
« on: January 31, 2018, 10:07:26 pm »
Hi, I have an epson receipt printer (TM-220PD) installed in a PC with W7 and in another PC with W8. I send a ticket with Arial and Courier New fonts. IN W7 it does print as expected (Arial and Courier New fonts). In W8 it doe not use these fonts, but falls back to the device (resident) fonts. Anybody had this problem? Any idea? Furthermore, the strange thing is that from Notepad I can print with the Windows font. I thought that printing to the Printer canvas, it would create a print jopb the same way other programs do (e.g. Notepad).

SymbolicFrank

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Re: EPSON rECEIPT PRINTER IN WINDOWS 8
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2018, 09:46:42 pm »
Yes, I did. The drivers are iffy.

You have the choice between using a COM-port, which always works, but requires you to send control char sequences for everything. It sounds old, but I would recommend this. Just use TStringList.SaveToFile(COMn);.

Or you can use the COM driver/objects/interface (on Windows), which offer lots of convenient interfaces (like a Canvas and bitmapped fonts), but they are hard to get to work, as there are many different versions of everything. You will spend a lot of time on getting it installed and working reliably.

epergola

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Re: EPSON rECEIPT PRINTER IN WINDOWS 8
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2018, 10:06:22 pm »
Thanks. But do you have any idea why Wordpad can print Arial fonts and printer.canvas can not? Do you know if Wordpad (or Notepad) use some kind of conversion in creating the print job that Pascal does not?

SymbolicFrank

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Re: EPSON rECEIPT PRINTER IN WINDOWS 8
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2018, 11:12:43 pm »
A font is basically a set of numbered bitmaps.

Ok, many start out as vector drawings. But before they can be shown on the screen, they have to be turned into bitmaps. For each size. And there is a different one for bold and italic.

While those bitmaps themselves aren't protected, the names are. "Arial" is a copy-protected font name. You have to pay the owner if you want to use it.

You can copy it and name it something like "Liberation Sans". That would be totally legal.

And that's why you have "font families": specify a font name, and it will use the closest one available. But not all devices support that.

If you want the exact font, you have to render it into bitmaps first, and then upload it to the printer. User-defined fonts or graphics.


Anyway, it doesn't matter. If you use a POS printer, you are either printing receipts or labels, both of which have a very limited printing area. And the fonts supplied make the best use of that. Use them.

 

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