Figure 1-23.—Dot matrix printer showing operating control panel.
features quickly and easily. The printer we are using as
our example is a dot matrix printer (shown in figure
1-23). Dot matrix printers are widely used with
microcomputers in the workspaces. You will become
very familiar with their operation.
P R I N T E R O P E R A T I N G C O N T R O L
PANEL.— The operating control panel shown in figure
1-24 displays the buttons that control various functions
along with several indicator and warning lights that
show you what functions are currently in operation.
Listed below are some of the more common CONTROL
BUTTONS and INDICATOR/WARNING LIGHTS
you are likely to see and use on this type of printer.
Control Buttons. —You can set up various
functions and control printing functions by manually
pushing control buttons. To activate the buttons, you
must first put the printer in an offline status. Normally,
this is done by depressing the online button.
ONLINE BUTTON The online button allows
you to put the printer in either online or offline
status. When in online status, the printer is under
the control of the operating system and
Figure 1-24.—Printer operating control panel.
1-22
applications program. When in offline status,
the printer cannot receive data.
LINE-FEED (LF) BUTTON The line-feed
button allows you to advance the printer paper
one line at a time every time you press it. On
many printers, if you depress the line-feed button
for more than 5 seconds, the paper feeds
continuously line by line. Regardless of how this
button is used, the internal line counter is
incremented accordingly; therefore, the top-of-
form position is never changed.
FORM-FEED (FF) BUTTON The form-feed
button allows you to advance the printer paper to
the top-of-form (TOF) position (the top of the
next page).
TOP-OF-FORM (TOF) BUTTON Pressing
the TOF button will advance the printer paper 1
1/2 inches and redefine the location of TOF on
the paper. On this particular printer, it will not
feed the paper to the TOF position, as it does on
many of the high-speed printers you have
operated.
FONT BUTTON With the font button you can
select between fonts, depending upon job
requirements.
If no selection is made, the
operating system normally defaults to the courier
font.
PRINT MODE BUTTON The mode button
allows you to select the quality of print. This
