The RTA system comes with several pre-defined printers. Many times, if printers have already been installed and configured on your computer system or network, no additional printer configuration is required. Setting up a new printer is a snap since the Windows Print Manager handles all the print jobs. Before setting up printers, it may be helpful to understand some configurations in the RTA program.
The Windows Print Manager takes over the print job; therefore, RTA only needs to send the print job to the Windows print SPOOLER (see above configurations). No printer escape codes are needed in lines A - J in printer records (SPM). When print jobs are sent out, they are formatted according to the printer codes based on the print driver installed on your computer or network. If you want to override the print codes from the print driver, then the print job needs to go SPOOLER-DIRECT (see above configurations) and the desired printer escape codes need to be defined in lines A – J for the appropriate printer record (SPM). Part tags and bin labels are examples of print jobs that need to go SPOOLER-DIRECT because special codes must be sent to the printer to format the bar codes and label sizes properly.

Adding a Printer (SPM)

To add a printer record, do the following:

1. Select System > Setup Printers > File Maintenance from the RTA main menu (SPM).
2. Enter password level 3.
3. Enter a printer ID and choose Add printer. The printer ID is a text field allowing up to four characters.
4. Choose whether to use an existing printer as a template or create a printer from scratch.
5. Define the printer.
6. Save the record.

Printer Record Field Descriptions

• Printer ID: (Text field) Enter up to four characters for the printer ID. Select an ID that easily identifies which printer it is and/or where it's located. For example, the printer could be named by location (e.g., OFFC, SHOP, or 9 for /dev/tty09) or by the group of users (e.g., MECH, PART, ACCT). Another naming convention is to use the printer manufacturer or model (e.g., HP5L for a Hewlett Packard 5 laser printer or OKID for an Okidata printer). Obviously, this naming convention wouldn't work well if you have two or more HP or Okidata printers. Several printers are pre-defined for your convenience. SYST is the default system printer.
• Device: The device defined here depends on the configurations in the cblconfi file (refer to the beginning of the "Printers" section). If the print configurations have been set up in the cblconfi file, usually a value of PRINTER, PRINTER2, PRINTER3, etc. will be entered here. When a print job is sent out, RTA will send the output to the specified device according to the device name entered here or the device according to the configurations in the cblconfi file. If the device isn't found in your operating system, the output will be written to a text file. For example, if PRINTER is entered for the device name, RTA will check for an actual system device called PRINTER. The cblconfi file will also be checked for a line starting with PRINTER; if an entry is found, the output will be sent to the specified. If neither an actual device or entry is found in the cblconfi file, a text file called PRINTER will be created on the hard drive.
• Spooler: This option is used only for Windows operating systems. Select this checkbox to send print jobs for this printer directly to the Windows print spooler; deselect this checkbox to send print jobs spooler-direct (you'll need set up Codes In and Codes Out when the printer is spooler-direct). In most cases this option should be checked.
• Form Feed: Select this checkbox to force a form feed at the end of each print job sent to this printer. If this printer is ejecting a blank page in between each print job, deselect this checkbox to suppress the form feed.
• Descriptions 1 and 2: Enter printer descriptions as needed. Be descriptive so the printer can be easily identified.
• Type: This is used only for printers that will be printing bar codes. Select a value similar to the actual printer: IBM, HPLZR, OVAT, or DEVICE.
• Bar Code: This is used only for printers that will be printing bar codes. Select the bar code format to use: 3 of 9 or 93. Code 93 allows the use of characters that were previously unrecognized with the Code 3 of 9. Code 93 is not valid if you print using a bar code cartridge, instead Code 3 of 9 bar codes will always be printed, regardless of the choice made. Code 93 is shorter (more compressed) than Code 3 of 9. If your part number is 20 characters or larger you must use Code 93. If you plan to utilize Code 93, it will be necessary to re-initialize your TriCoder. Contact technical support for assistance.
• Tag: This is used only for printers that will be printing part tags, with or without bar codes. Toggle the tag setting to a value based on the printer you are using and the format of the part tag you wish to print: NO, YES, LAZ, LZ2, SLP, OVA or OV4. The NO setting prints a tag with six lines of text, which includes fit codes. The YES setting produces a tag with three lines of text. The LAZ option is designed to print tags on an HP compatible laserjet printer, three columns by ten rows. The LZ2 option is designed to print on an HP compatible deskjet printer, two columns by ten rows; the SLP option to Smart Label printers; the OVA setting to the Ovation, C.Itoh, and Citizen thermal printers; the OV4 setting to the Ovation, C.Itoh, and Citizen thermal printers when using 4 inch labels instead of the standard 3 inch labels.
• Bin: This is used only for printers that will be printing bin labels, with or without bar codes. Set the bin setting to a value based on the printer you are using and the format of the bin label you wish to print (see descriptions in the Tag field).
• Code In and Codes Out: This is where specific printer escape codes are defined for this printer. Up to 10 lines (A-J) of printer escape codes can be defined. Refer to the printer manual to get the codes, if needed. Codes In are processed before print jobs are printed and are used for formatting. Codes Out are processed after print jobs have finished printing and are used to reset the printer. No codes are needed if the Windows Print Manager (spooler) is handling the print jobs. To override the Windows Print Manager (spooler-direct), enter the printer escape codes in decimal format.

Each code line consists of two parts: the code type and the printer escape code. The first part, the code type, identifies the type of printer escape codes being sent to the printer. The types available are described as follows:

The second part of the code, the printer escape codes, specifically formats the printer output. For example, to format a dot-matrix printer for compressed printing, a code of 15 is needed; to format an HP laser printer for compressed printing, codes 27 38 107 50 83 are needed. Again, refer to your printer manual for the codes needed to format your printer output as desired.
NOTE: A value of 32 is displayed when no printer escape codes are defined.

ASCII Chart

The following ASCII conversion chart has been provided to help you decipher terminal and printer codes.

Changing a Printer

To change a printer record, do the following:

1. Select System > Setup Printers > File Maintenance from the RTA main menu (SPM).
2. Enter password level 3.
3. Enter a printer ID or press F1 to select a printer from the lookup list.
4. Make the changes as needed.
5. Save the changes.

Deleting a Printer

To delete a printer record, do the following:

1. Select System > Setup Printers > File Maintenance from the RTA main menu (SPM).
2. Enter password level 3.
3. Enter a printer ID or press F1 to select a printer from the lookup list.
4. Select Utilities > Delete printer from the menu or click on Delete printer icon in the toolbar.
5. Choose Yes to confirm the deletion.