Does RPM support bold text?

Mon, 07/01/2019 - 11:59 By Dave Brooks

Q: Is there any way for RPM Remote Print Manager® ("RPM") to print a document correctly with mixed font styles such as bold, italics, or both?

A: The answer depends on data in the incoming print job.

  1. If you are printing SCS from an iSeries computer, RPM can handle most font styles and changes automatically. The Remote OUTQ may need to be configured differently than normal. Setting the Host Print Transform parameter to *NO will cause RPM to receive raw SCS data. In the Print Data Options for your RPM queue, turn on Convert SCS to ASCII. RPM supports and interprets most, but not all, SCS commands.
  2. RPM understands two other ways to print bold: using backspace (0x08) or a carriage return (0x0C) without a line feed. We suggest opening the data file in a hexadecimal editor looking for these two characters. RPM also supports strikethrough and underlined text using this method as well.
  3. At this time, RPM does not interpret bold printing with any other format. RPM removes the PCL formatting instructions and, since bold printing is performed by a PCL sequence, no font change instructions remain. Future versions of RPM may support bold printing when the incoming data is PCL.