Dot matrix Output

[Zath]

This might sound really dumb but how do you print to a dot matrix so it prints each line character by character rather than printing pixel line by pixel line as if its printing graphics ?
I tried before with Delphi many moons ago but struggled to get my head round all the bands etc.

Thanks

[CM630]

By default, that's just how it works- you send characters and it prints characters. When you sent to it abcd, it prints abcd.
If you want to print graphics, you have to use special character sequences, usually including nonprintable characters.
Did you try this: http://wiki.freepascal.org/Using_the_printer

[taazz]

Which OS? On windows all printer drivers use a graphics output by default in order to use character based output you need to use passthrough function which sends everything as raw bytes and you have full control about the escape codes and the final text through them. Please explain in detail what exactly you have tried the result and expected results.

[CM630]

I am quite sure, that it is not that way, but:
  1. If you use notepad or something similar, it will simply send text codes.
  2. If you use something which supports formatting (Word, PDF*) it will embed the fonts in the printer, and then it will start printing.
 
Consider:
1. Text pages are printed much faster than graphic pages (or at least on older printers with small memory and LPT)
2. If you print a Word document to a PDF printer, after opening the printer, text is still presented as text- you can copy it as such.