Epson FX-185 User Manual - Page 81

Emphasized Mode (line 30) stays on until you shut it off. DoubleStrike comes on (line 40) before Emphasized is turned off. You see the result above. Proportional Mode Have you ever wondered why most computer printouts don't look as good as typeset books, even when you use bold characters? It's because most dot-matrix printers use a uniform width for each character (monospacing) whereas typesetting machines set the width for each character proportional to its size. That is, narrow characters like i and ! are printed without the excess space that would be used if they were printed in the same width as m and w. Now the FX offers you a Proportional Mode on a dot-matrix printer. In this mode characters are printed with a uniform amount of blank space between them. ESCape "p1" turns on the Proportional Mode. If your computer system doesn't allow you to use lowercase letters, you may use a longer form instead: ESCape CHR$(112) "1". Here's an example of the difference between Monospaced and Proportional Modes. Enter: NEW 10 LPRINT If 20 LPRINT CHR$(27)"p1" 40 LPRINT PROPORTIONAL ON" 60 LPRINT CHR$(27) "p0"; 70 LPRINT "!!!!!PROPORTIONAL OFF" 80 LPRINT CHR$(27)"@" PROFORTIONAL ON !!!!!PROPORTIONAL OFF Lines 10 and 40 print the same number of exclamation marks, but the characters from line 40 are packed more closely. Proportional Mode prints the characters in Emphasized and strips off all unused space between characters. The shut-off command for Proportional print is either ESCape "p0" or ESCape CHR$(112)"0". Either puts the printer back into the mode that it was in before it entered Proportional Mode. As an example, if the printer enters Proportional Mode from Compressed Mode, ESCape "p0" returns the printer to that mode. 64