cannot print to quickly to line printer

[Guest]

Hey all,

I'm, trying to print to an okidata line printer and i've found compatble
drivers however my print speed has decrease substatntially to an almost
unacceptable point. The only way around this is y using a generic text
driver, however i then lose my barcode I'm putting on the invoice, does
anyone have any experiance or ideas on how to work aorund this problem. Is
it possible to print LQ quality printjobs in win xp, perhaps going around the
hwole driver issue completely?

thanks

Mr. G

 

[Chuck]

What model is the Oki "line printer"?

Printing LQ without a driver may involve printing/copying to lpt1, and using
printer control codes. Remember direct access to hardware is generally
frouned upon in

Generally, the Microsoft generic text printer driver is capable of being set
to do LQ by placing the proper codes in the appropriate driver option boxes.

The Bar code is another issue. The printer generally must be sent graphics
or control data to print the bar codes.
There are rather involved ways to do this, although the limitations may be
severe, such as the bar code positioning.
Is there a postscript driver available for this printer? Some of the
postscript and other drivers can discriminate between ASCII text and
graphics such as bar codes, and structure the data to the printer to avoid
the larger data quantity needed for an all graphics printing mode.

A big issue is that usually an application must keep track of where the
printer head needs to be before and after the on the fly change from text to
graphics and back. Printers usually loose track, and default in some manner,
such as a LF/CR between modes.

Printing a page of text as a graphics page involves sending a lot more data
to the printer than sending it as ASCII text. The printer's firmware tends
to require more time to deal with the data, and the printer mechanics
require more time to position accurately.