Summary

The contents of the Printer initialisation string and Printer finalisation string fields originate from the printer manufacturer and they should not be altered.

Printer initialization strings are command characters that are sent to a printer as part of the print job. The de-facto standard for these commands is PCL, but other standards exist, such as Epson’s ESC/P for dot matrix printers.

These settings may be used by payslips that print on dot matrix printers. Most modern laser printers do not use these settings.

Example

Command characters are often expressed in a decimal encoding of their position in the ASCII table. A typical example is 27, which stands for Esc (Escape) in the ASCII character encoding. 27 is also used in PCL to separate commands from another.

For example, a printer that uses PCL could read the following string:

27 38 108 49 72 27 40 49 48 85 27 40 115 49 54 46 54 54 72 27 38 108 48 79

27 38 108 49 72 means "Paper feed from paper tray"

27 40 49 48 85 means "CP 437 international character set"

27 40 115 49 54 46 54 54 72 means "Select cpi pitch or some font"

27 38 108 48 79 means "Portrait print orientation"