Acornsoft View printing large Top Margin

[marrold]

Hi all,

I've been experimenting with Acornsoft View and an old dot matrix printer (Oki Microline 182) with a goal of demonstrating an Econet network + Print server at an event next year.

After some trials and tribulations it's mostly working with the printer attached locally ( I haven't got as far as trying via a Print Server yet)

One thing I've noticed is when printing the Top Margin is rather large. I've experimented with setting the Top Margin (TM) to zero lines, as well as the Header and Footer Margin, and disabling the Header and Footer altogether, but it still seems to be jumping ~5 lines at the top. I don't think this is an issue with the printer or driver, and even with the perforations of the paper barely under the roller it still prints the large gap. Printing to the screen also shows the gap.

The default page length is 66 lines according to the manual. This looks to be about right for the 9.5" x 11" paper I'm using, but the photo below shows it only prints 61 lines before leaving another gap and continuing, suggesting that 5 lines are being consumed by... something.



These are the command codes I'm using:



Does anyone know what I am missing here?

Thanks

[billcarr2005]

What happens if you omit the command codes altogether?
Or could you try putting them all on one line?
It would seem that each command code is taking up a line on the page

[marrold]

It's a similar result without any control codes (in fact the gap might be larger, I'll test that at to some point)

I don't think it's possible to put them on one line unfortunately

[sweh]

Shouldn't "M 0" be "FM 0" ? Page number 34 of https://stardot.org.uk/mirrors/www.bbcd ... wGuide.pdf may have an OCR error; it says "M" but then shows FM as the example, and page number 60 also says FM

[sweh]

You should also check your printer configuration; a number of them have a hardware perforation skip option

eg from Epson; https://files.support.epson.com/htmldoc ... f/cp_3.htm

Skip over perforation
This feature is available only when continuous paper is selected. When you turn on this feature, the printer provides a one-inch (25.4 mm) margin between the last line printed on one page and the first line printed on the next page. Because most application program margin settings override margin settings from the control panel, you should use this setting only if you cannot set your top and bottom margins using your application.

OKI printers also seem to have this option, so it may be pretty common.

[danielj]

You should also check your printer configuration; a number of them have a hardware perforation skip option

This - it definitely looks a bit "dip switch setting" to me.

[marrold]

Shouldn't "M 0" be "FM 0"

FM 0 seems to have solved the problem, thanks for the suggestion.

a number of them have a hardware perforation skip option

I had forgotten about that. The Oki does have a switch for skipping the perforations but It's current disabled.