Unable to print some Unicode chars using PCL5

[Marinko]

I have followed all the instructions found here to set the file as UTF8

ESC&t83P

ESC(18N

The most of the cars can be printed without any problems. But as an example the following on not:

U+0109 ĉ c4 89 LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CIRCUMFLEX

The char is correct in the file and it has the hex value above. So I expected that the font is an issue I switched to Arial but this didn't help at all.

Do you have any suggestion?

[dansdaduk]

I've tried to print the "LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CIRCUMFLEX" character (which, as you point out, is at Unicode code-point U+0109, UTF-8 representation 0xc489), using the printer resident Arial and Courier fonts, on two printers: LaserJet Pro 400 MFP M475dn and LaserJet Enterprise M553x.

Neither ot them prints the character, leading me to conclude that these printer-resident fonts do not include this character.

One of the test files I've set up shows which characters in the Unicode range U+0100 -> U+01FF are present in the printer-resident Arial font: 

The attached .zip file contains a few test print files (including the above one), analyses of these files, and scans of a couple of the print jobs.

The test files were produced using the Misc Samples | Unicode characters and Font Sample tools in the PCL Paraphernalia application, available via http://www.pclparaphernalia.eu

[dansdaduk · Accepted solution]

I suspect that your LaserJet M606, being an Enterprise model, has the same set of resident fonts as the Laserjet Enterprise M553x model.

This model has 4 fonts making up the Andale Mono WorldType set (Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese).

I've tried the U+0100 -> U+01FF grid with the Andale Mono WT J variant:

All of the character glyphs within this range are printed, including your "LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CIRCUMFLEX" character.

I suspect (but haven't tried it to confirm) that this Unicode subset is available with all four of the Andale Mono WT variants.

[Marinko]

You are great!! Thanks a lot  

[dansdaduk]

Good that you've got some sort of resolution to your problem.

I've noticed a few differences in the glyphs shown by the Arial, Courier and Andale Mono WT fonts within that U+0100 -> U+01FF range:

• U+010F - Latin Small Letter D with Caron - with Andale Mono WT, the accent looks like a 'caron', but with Arial and Courier fonts the accent looks like a 'prime symbol'; however, lots of Windows fonts, and 'wiki' pages do show the character with this latter shape, so I've no idea which is the more correct.
• U+013D - Latin Capital Letter L with Caron - similar difference.
• U+013F - Latin Small Letter L with Caron - similar difference.
• U+015E - Latin Capital  Letter S with Cedilla - older fonts have cediila, Andale font has a 'subscript right-quote' (not sure of proper name).
• U+015F - Latin Small Letter S with Cedilla - similar difference.
• U+0162 - Latin Capital Letter T with Cedilla - similar difference.
• U+0163 - Latin Small Letter T with Cedilla - similar difference.
• U+0165 - Latin Small Letter T with Caron - similar difference.

There may be lots of other such differences, but it doesn't seem easy to determine which (if either!) is actually correct.

It may just be the case that both are correct, and that the different shapes (glyphs) in the different typefaces (fonts) are to be expected.

... and it is very unlikely that older fonts will be modified in case this destablises existing usage.