Not printing proper Chinese fonts.

[C_A_Grande]

Hello, I have a HP Laserjet P3015d and I acquired the Chinese font module for Asian fonts from HP.

My OS is Linux is: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3  (x86_64)  and I using cups for printing.

At the moment I'm having problems because when I'm trying to print Chinese text ( Simplified Chinese), other Chinese text is being printed.

This is which my print file contains:

^[&l1O
^[&l26A
^[&t38P
^[(18C^[(s1p12v4s0b37366T^[(s0B^[&a1417H^[&a0V****** - V009 - 未知箱号 ^[(12U^[(s1p12v4s0b4148T^[(s0B
^[(18C ^[(s1p12v4s0b37366T ^[(s0B^[&a0H^[&a1417V日期 / 时间:^[&a1984H^[&a1417V^[(12U^[(s1p18v4s0b4148T^[(s3B09.09.16 / 15:30:53^[(12U^[(s1p10v4s0b4148T^[(s0B ^[(18C^[(s1p12v4s0b37366T^[(s0B^[&a3401H^[&a1417V箱>号:^[&a4818H^[&a1417V^[(12U^[(s1p18v4s0b4148T^[(s3B000005^[(12U^[(s1p10v4s0b4148T^[(s0B

* I have susbtitued the company name which was printed by ****** but other Chinese fonts are exactly the same.

However this is how it's being displayed:

Any idea why wrong Chinese characters are being printed?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards

[dansdaduk]

I don't have enough information to be able to guess at the cause of your problem.

I can't yet see your image of "how it's being displayed" - these images may take a number of hours before they are "approved" and available for viewing.

Looking at your code snippet:

• I assume that you are using the graphic character pair "^[" as 'placeholders' for the non-graphic Escape control-code character.
• I can't tell exactly which hexadecimal codes represent your Chinese characters, since it may be the case that pasting them into this forum has converted them (e.g. to UTF-8 representation - I haven't checked this though).

So can you show explicitly the hexadecimal values used for the Chinese characters.

For the Simplified Chinese character set, I think that the values should be in the (non-contiguous) range 0xA1A0 -> 0xF7FE.

[dansdaduk]

I can see your image now - but (as I don't know Chinese at all) it doesn't mean anything much to me , sorry.

Looking in more detail at your code snippet, the first four Chinese characters look like:

 

I'm not sure if this is what they're supposed to be (since I don't know what transforms may have been done in pasting and copying these characters).

If these ARE the required glyphs, then they are at the following Unicode code-points:

U+672A

U+77E5

U+7BB1

U+53F7

I think (I'm not 100% sure) that in the "Simplfied Chinese" 1/2 byte encoding (which you select in your PCL snippet), they would be represented by the following (Big-Endian) hexadecimal values:

0xCEB4

0xD6AA

0xCFE4

0xBAC5

So what (hexadecimal) values are you actually passing to the printer for these characters?

[dansdaduk]

For those four glyphs, the UTF-8 representations (where '0x' just indicates a hexadecimal value follows) would be:

0xe69caa

0xe79fa5

0xe7aeb1

0xe58fb7

If you are actually passing in UTF-8 encoded strings as per above, then you should probably:

• Select Symbol Set 18N ("Unicode") instead of 18C ("Simplified Chinese").
• Use "Text Parsing Method" 83 ("UTF-8") instead of method 38 ("1- or 2-byte Asian 8-bit").

[C_A_Grande]

I'm sorry but I'm not very familiar with how to print PCL with different encodings.

At the moment I tried this:

%PrinterCommand[&l1O]
%PrinterCommand[&l26A]
%PrinterCommand[&t83P]
%PrinterCommand[(18N]%PrinterCommand[(s1p12v4s0b37366T]%PrinterMMSetPos[50,0]1Be69caa1Be79fa51Be7aeb11Be58fb7 %PrinterUniverse[12]%PrinterSetMedium%VarSet[name=y_line_pos value=50]

With this print file

^[&l1O
^[&l26A
^[&t83P
^[(18N^[(s1p12v4s0b37366T^[&a1417H^[&a0V1Be69caa1Be79fa51Be7aeb11Be58fb7 ^[(12U^[(s1p12v4s0b4148T^[(s0B

But this is printing the hex code instead of the Chinese Symbol.

I've also tried without the 1B symbol, and using 0x before the code but there is not proper results.

Thanks in advance

[dansdaduk]

Your string of data characters is "1Be69caa1Be79fa51Be7aeb11Be58fb7"; two points:

• You are inserting those characters as ASCII characters; the UTF-8 data should be added as hexadecimal byte-pairs; I've no idea how your linux/CUPS application allows you to do this.
• You don't require the 1B elements - hexadecimal 1B is the code-point value associated with the non-graphic Escape control-code character, which is used to introduce PCL escape sequences - in documentation it is usually shown by one of the 'place-holders' <Esc> or <esc>.

I've taken your latest code snippet, and:

• Made the relevant changes as per above.
• I've changed the initial vertical position, as your (zero) value may place the text in the unprintable region of the page.
• I've added the text "abcde" after the second font select, so that my printers (which don't have your Chinese font) will  actually print something.
• I've also added '<Esc>E' escape sequences at head and tail, so the snippet is theoretically a 'complete' PCL job.

Attached is the resulting snippet02_x01.pcl file (within a .zip file to allow it to be attached here).

Here is a hexadecimal and character view of the content of that file:

Offset: dec  Hexadecimal                                       Text            
-----------  ------------------------------------------------  ----------------

0000000000   1b 45 1b 26 6c 31 4f 1b 26 6c 32 36 41 1b 26 74   .E.&l1O.&l26A.&t
0000000016   38 33 50 1b 28 31 38 4e 1b 28 73 31 70 31 32 76   83P.(18N.(s1p12v
0000000032   34 73 30 62 33 37 33 36 36 54 1b 26 61 31 34 31   4s0b37366T.&a141
0000000048   37 48 1b 26 61 36 30 30 56 e6 9c aa e7 9f a5 e7   7H.&a600Væ.ªç.¥ç
0000000064   ae b1 e5 8f b7 1b 28 31 32 55 1b 28 73 31 70 31   ®±å.·.(12U.(s1p1
0000000080   32 76 34 73 30 62 34 31 34 38 54 1b 28 73 30 42   2v4s0b4148T.(s0B
0000000096   61 62 63 64 65 1b 45                              abcde.E

...and here is an analysis of the PCL file:

Offset: dec  Type                   Sequence          Description
-----------  ---------------------  ----------------  ----------------------------------------------------

0000000000   PCL Simple             <Esc>E            Printer Reset
0000000002   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&l1O         Orientation: Landscape
0000000007   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&l26A        Page Size: A4
0000000013   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&t83P        Text Parsing Method: UTF-8
0000000019   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(18N         Primary Font: Symbol Set (18N = Unicode)
0000000024   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s1p         Primary Font: Spacing: Proportional
0000000029                                 12v        Primary Font: Height (12 points)
0000000032                                 4s         Primary Font: Style (Condensed)
0000000034                                 0b         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000036                                 37366T     Primary Font: Typeface (identifier = 37366)
0000000042   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&a1417H      Cursor Position Horizontal (1417 decipoints)
0000000050   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&a600V       Cursor Position Vertical   (600 decipoints)
0000000057   UTF-8 data             0xe69caa..        [U+672a][U+77e5][U+7bb1][U+53f7]
0000000069   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(12U         Primary Font: Symbol Set (12U = PC-850 Multilingual)
0000000074   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s1p         Primary Font: Spacing: Proportional
0000000079                                 12v        Primary Font: Height (12 points)
0000000082                                 4s         Primary Font: Style (Condensed)
0000000084                                 0b         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000086                                 4148T      Primary Font: Typeface (4148 = Univers)
0000000091   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s0B         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000096   UTF-8 data                               abcde
0000000101   PCL Simple             <Esc>E            Printer Reset

I hope that this explains the method in sufficient detail.

As mentioned above, I can't fully test this, since I don't have your (or any other) font with the required Chinese repertoire on my printers. 

[dansdaduk]

One of my printers (a loan Colour LaserJet Enterprise M553x) does actually include four 'double-byte' fonts:

Andale Mono WT J, Andale Mono WT K, Andale Mono WT T and Andale Mono WT S.

I've modified the snippet02_x01.pcl file, by changing the first PCL font selection sequence to select the latter of these four fonts, instead of your Chinese font.

i.e. the font selection sequence is <Esc>(s1p12v0s0b17007T instead of your <Esc>(s1p12v4s0b37366T sequence.

This is a scan of the relevant part of the page printed on that printer:

[C_A_Grande]

Hello,

Thank you very much for your help.

I finally were able to print the chinese characters with this format:

^[&l1O
^[&l26A
^[(12U^[(s0p5h0s0b4099T^[(s3B
^[(18C^[&t38p^[(s1p12v4s0b37366T^[&a1700H^[&a708V******** - V009 - ÌõÂë¶ÁÈ¡´íÎó
^[(12U^[(s1p12v4s0b4148T^[(s0B

^[(18C^[&t38p^[(s1p12v4s0b37366T^[&a850H^[&a1417VÈÕÆÚ / ʱ¼ä: ^[&a1984H^[&a1417V^[(12U^[(s1p18v4s0b4148T^[(s3B16.09.16 / 08:41:38^[(s0B

Where õÂë¶ÁÈ¡´íÎó is how is converted the Chinese characters when I convert from UtF-8 to GB2312 encoding.

Main problem here is that when I tried converting before to GB2312, the conversion wasn't done properly.

Many thanks

[dansdaduk]

Good that you've now got things working on your system, using the Text Parsing Mode 38 ("Asian 1/2 byte") setting, with GB2312 encoding of the two-byte values.

Your PCL is (strictly) invalid, because the (two instances of) <Esc>&t38p should be <Esc>&t38P (since in each case they are the last or only contiguous sequence with the same root).

Taking that into account, and changing the font select to use the Andale Mono WT S font, I've set up a test file; this analysis shows the content:

0000000000   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&l1O         Orientation: Landscape
0000000005   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&l26A        Page Size: A4
0000000011   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(12U         Primary Font: Symbol Set (12U = PC-850 Multilingual)
0000000016   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s0p         Primary Font: Spacing: Fixed
0000000021                                 5h         Primary Font: Pitch (5 characters per inch)
0000000023                                 0s         Primary Font: Style (Upright, solid)
0000000025                                 0b         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000027                                 4099T      Primary Font: Typeface (4099 = Courier)
0000000032   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s3B         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Bold
0000000037   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(18C         Primary Font: Symbol Set (18C = Simplified Chinese GB2312-80)
0000000042   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&t38P        Text Parsing Method: 1- or 2-byte Asian 8-bit
0000000048   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s1p         Primary Font: Spacing: Proportional
0000000053                                 12v        Primary Font: Height (12 points)
0000000056                                 0s         Primary Font: Style (Upright, solid)
0000000058                                 0b         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000060                                 17007T     Primary Font: Typeface (17007 = Andale Mono WT S)
0000000066   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&a1700H      Cursor Position Horizontal (1700 decipoints)
0000000074   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&a708V       Cursor Position Vertical   (708 decipoints)
0000000081   Data                   0x2a2a2a..        ******** - V009 - [ccf5][c2eb][b6c1][c8a1][b4ed][cef3]
0000000111   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(12U         Primary Font: Symbol Set (12U = PC-850 Multilingual)
0000000116   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s1p         Primary Font: Spacing: Proportional
0000000121                                 12v        Primary Font: Height (12 points)
0000000124                                 4s         Primary Font: Style (Condensed)
0000000126                                 0b         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000128                                 4148T      Primary Font: Typeface (4148 = Univers)
0000000133   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s0B         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000138   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(18C         Primary Font: Symbol Set (18C = Simplified Chinese GB2312-80)
0000000143   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&t38P        Text Parsing Method: 1- or 2-byte Asian 8-bit
0000000149   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s1p         Primary Font: Spacing: Proportional
0000000154                                 12v        Primary Font: Height (12 points)
0000000157                                 0s         Primary Font: Style (Upright, solid)
0000000159                                 0b         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000161                                 17007T     Primary Font: Typeface (17007 = Andale Mono WT S)
0000000167   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&a850H       Cursor Position Horizontal (850 decipoints)
0000000174   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&a1417V      Cursor Position Vertical   (1417 decipoints)
0000000182   Data                   0xc8d5c6..        [c8d5][c6da] / [cab1][bce4]: 
0000000195   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&a1984H      Cursor Position Horizontal (1984 decipoints)
0000000203   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>&a1417V      Cursor Position Vertical   (1417 decipoints)
0000000211   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(12U         Primary Font: Symbol Set (12U = PC-850 Multilingual)
0000000216   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s1p         Primary Font: Spacing: Proportional
0000000221                                 18v        Primary Font: Height (18 points)
0000000224                                 4s         Primary Font: Style (Condensed)
0000000226                                 0b         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium
0000000228                                 4148T      Primary Font: Typeface (4148 = Univers)
0000000233   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s3B         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Bold
0000000238   Data                                     16.09.16 / 08:41:38
0000000257   PCL Parameterised      <Esc>(s0B         Primary Font: Stroke Weight: Medium

... and the result of sending this to the LaserJet M553x is as follows: