32 Line Matrix Printer LinePrinter Plus Programmer's Reference

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6 Vertical Page Formatting

Overview

Rapid vertical paper movement is called slewing. A vertical format unit (VFU)

is a program you load into the printer that enables it to slew paper to preset

locations on a page.

On your printer, LF commands and other commands that produce blank lines

are accumulated and moved in one efficient paper motion. The VFUs are

maintained for compatibility with earlier applications.

Following an introductory overview of how to plan a vertical page format, the

following two methods of vertical formatting are described in this chapter:

• Vertical tab table: The IBM Proprinter XL and the Epson FX emulations

each contain a vertical tab table. It is a set of programmed vertical tabs.

• Electronic Vertical Format Unit (EVFU): Only the P-Series emulation

provides the EVFU capability.

Planning a Vertical Page Format

Vertical page formatting with a VFU consists of four steps:

1. Select the type of vertical format you want to use. This is covered in the

next section.

2. Design the form, determining the spacing and channel assignments for

every line. Channel assignments are discussed in the VFU sections.

3. Determine the programming sequence. The format of the sequence

depends on the type of VFU you select and is discussed in each VFU

section of this chapter.

4. Send the programming sequence to the printer in the host data stream.

This loads the VFU program.