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Subject: Re: Laser Printers
To: gpalmer@FreeBSD.ORG (Gary Palmer)
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 96 8:29:24 MET DST
From: Greg Lehey <lehey.pad@sni.de>
Cc: steve@aries.bbcc.org, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
In-Reply-To: <1522.828074144@palmer.demon.co.uk>; from "Gary Palmer" at Mar 29, 96 4:35 am
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>
> Steve Prentice wrote in message ID
> <Pine.BSF.3.91.960328201329.1669A-100000@aries>:
>> I am having difficulty setting up a HPLJII on my system.  I have a
>> regular line printer (dot matrix) set up and working fine, but my Laser
>> Printer just spits out blank pages win I print to it.  What changes do I
>> need to make to the default printcap entry to get my HPLJII to work fine?
>
> The HP series have a warped view of the world (thanks to Microsoft)
> and need CR/LF combinations to work properly, which of course you
> don't get under UN*X-like OS's. The blank pages happen 'cos all the
> text has scrolled off the right hand side of the page.

To be fair to HP, this applies to all printers I know.  The original
definitions of CR and LF are:

Carriage return: return the carriage (print head) to the left margin.

Line feed: rotate the platen one line forward without moving the
carriage.

UNIX abused LF to mean both functions, which saves space, but is still
not correct.

All HP LaserJets I know have configurable actions on CR and LF,
although I've occasionally had difficulty setting them by menu.  What
you want is for LF to perform both functions, and CR to be ignored.
That way, you can print either from UNIX or from DOG without
reconfiguration.  Sorry, I don't have a handbook handy, but I'm sure
you'll find in the printer handbook.

Greg