User's Manual

Chapter 3

Print Pitches '

One of the big advantages an FX printer has over a daisy-wheel

printer or a typewriter is the ability it gives you to choose from a

variety of widths, or pitches, for your characters. To use this feature

well, it’s important to understand just how an FX prints. The tech-

nique used by an FX printer is called dot-matrix printing.

Dot-Matrix Printing

A dot matrix is a grid or graph that someone who designs a charac-

ter set for a dot matrix printer uses. The dot-matrix designs for the

characters, which may be letters of the alphabet, numbers, or sym-

bols, are stored in the printer’s read-only memory (ROM).

The FX’s dot matrix is nine rows of dots high and six columns of

dots wide. Look at any letter on your printout-it’s made up of a

series of dots. And, as you can see in Appendix A, every letter fits

inside this six by nine grid.

Figure 3-1. Dot-matrix characters