Maybe someone here can help me. The last time I got involved with printers and fonts, printers had tractors and ribbons and the only codes in use were ascii and ebcdic. So even if I could remember it would be out of date.

I've written a C program that writes a text file. I want to print it. I run it through expand and send it to lp, but it comes out in an undesirable primitive font.

Once upon a time, one sent a string of commands to the printer telling it what font to use and what size, etc. I dont think this is done anymore, and if it is I dont remember how to do it.

I assume programs embed in their output instructions in some common format which tell this stuff to the printer - in my case a HP1020. I've been looking on the search engines but I haven't found the magic words to find what I want.

Can someone point me to some info on how to get my output formatted. If it involves some escape sequences in the file, maybe a pointer to a description of which does what?

Thanks
Dick

Perhaps the utility "a2ps" may help you; it stands for "ASCII to PostScript". Also, their is GhostScript, which I believe can be used to generate output that can be sent to the printer. Another is LaTex, but that's a library that I have refused to ever bother with.

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dw
thanks for the pointers - I'll see where they lead me

Dick