Re: 4gl and MS Word

Thanks everybody. I printed out the 2 files sent by Colins. The content of the two files were not related , right Colin ? I printed the data.txt file and it came out good. I have to spend more time on it and would be back working on it soon. Will update my findings soon after. Thanks a lot! Ian Wilson <scobloke2@infotop.co.uk> wrote in message news:<baibpg$or7$1@titan.btinternet.com>... > aspiring immigrant wrote: > > What are PCL Overlays > > Overlays are a feature of version 5 of HP's Page Control Language. They > are supported in HP laser printers but not in HP inkjet printers (which > ISTR typically support PCL4). They are a bit like macros. > > There are escape sequences you send to the printer before and after a > chunk of data you want to define as an overlay. This is then stored in > the printers memory for future re-use. There are escape sequences to > tell the printer to print the overlay on every subsequent page or only > when explicitly referenced. You can assign an identifying number to the > overlay, this allows you to store several for different purposes. > > In subsequent print jobs there is an escape sequence you can include to > invoke a stored overlay. > > > > and what do I need to get there ? > > I first tried out PCL overlays using a text editor, you can use Notepad > if you can work out a way of cutting and pasting the escape character > into notepad. On a Windows box you can send the file to the printer > using a command such as copy /b filename.pcl /lpt1: > copy /b filename.pcl //servername/printername > It is important to bypass Windows printer drivers. > > I set up a desktop icon as a target for drag & drop printing of PCL or > Postscript files. > > Assuming you don't wish to leanr PCL or HPGL, to create a graphics > overlay you can edit the "print to file" output of any application > (word, powerpoint, photoshop, etc). You need a good editor to handle > files with control characters and arbitrarily long lines. You have to > chop out the bits you don't need and add the macro definition sequences. > > Of course, its all a *lot* easier of you purchase one of the commercial > programs for automating the creation of overlays.