Printing

This section describes how to print Thai text from CDE 1.3 and a dot matrix printer. For a list of dot matrix printers supported, see Appendix C of Thai Language Supplement for Solaris 2.6: Release Overview.

Printing From CDE Tools

If the Angsana UPC font is installed on your printer, you can print from any CDE 1.3 tool (fonts are not provided in Solaris 7 TLE).

Setting Up Thai Printing on a Dot Matrix Printer

This section assumes that your printer is registered in the WTT 2.0 standard listed in Appendix C, "Printer Brand, Model, and Code IDs" of Thai Language Supplement for Solaris 2.6: Release Overview.

If the system you are setting up uses printers that are registered in the WTT 2.0 standard, set them up using the instructions in the Setting Up User Accounts, Printers, and Mail manual of the SunOS 5.6 documentation.

Once your printer is set up, follow these steps to enable printing of Thai characters:

1. Type cd /usr/lp/interfaces

2. Edit the file named for the printer you just set up.

   Change lp.cat to lp.filter in the following line:

   if [! -x "${LPCAT:=${LOCALPATH}/lp.cat}"]

3. Create a shell script in /usr/lib/lp/bin called lp.filter that pipes printer jobs through lp.cat.

   The lp.filter program should have the syntax given below. See the thaifilter(1) man page in Appendix D, "Manual Pages", of the Thai Language Supplement for Solaris 2.6: Release Overview for the syntax of the thai_filter_command.

   thai_filter_command | lp.cat

Printing Thai Text

This section describes how to use the thaifilter(1) print utility and printer conversion tables, which you may need to print Thai text.

Using the thaifilter(1) Utility

The thaifilter(1) program is a filter that converts Thai text into three levels:

• Base level characters (including any ASCII characters)

• Above-level characters

• Below-level characters

This system is called 3-Level Classification. The two main uses for files converted to 3-Level Classification are:

• To direct printers to print Thai characters at the correct display level.

• To view Thai text files on terminals that normally do not allow the multi-level (normal) display of Thai text.

Note - Some newer printers come with 3-Level Classification software already installed. For that reason the thaifilter(1) program has the -x option that turns 3-Level Classification off.

The thaifilter(1) man page is supplied in the TLE 2.6 software, and is also available in printed form in Appendix D, "Manual Pages", of the Thai Language Supplement for Solaris 2.6: Release Overview.

Setting Up Printer Software

The WTT 2.0 standard identifies the following terms and conventions for printing Thai text:

• Printer IDs

  Printer IDs are 6-character codes defined by TAPIC to specify a printer's model, brand name, and character code. Printer vendors should have their printer codes clearly marked on their printers. The syntax for a printer ID is BBMMCC, where BB is a two-letter brand abbreviation, MM is a two-letter model abbreviation, and CC is a two-digit number representing the conversion code the printer uses. The printer brand and model abbreviations are listed in Appendix C, "Printer Brand, Model, and Code IDs," of the Thai Language Supplement for Solaris 2.6: Release Overview. See the next section for a discussion of printer conversion codes.

  For example, the first line of Table D-3 shows that the brand and model abbreviations for a Data Products IZR650 printer are DA and ZI. If this printer used the code conversion table number 10, the full printer ID would be: DAZI10.

• Conversion codes and printer code conversion tables

  Use the codes listed in the right side of Table A-3 when specifying a printer ID. Solaris 7 TLE adheres to TIS 988-2533, which specifies a table of codes for printing to the TAC11x11.COD standard. Because not every printer uses this table, the TIS standard specifies a total of 17 code conversion lookup tables to convert other known printer codes to TAC11x11.COD. (TAC is an abbreviation for the Thai API Consortium. APIs defined by the Thai Internationalization Committee are prefixed with "TAC.")

These 17 code conversion tables are supplied with Solaris 7 TLE for converting the codes supplied with various printers to the TAC11x11.COD standard. The tables, listed in Table D-3, are stored in the /usr/lib/lp/files directory.

Table D-3 Code Conversion Tables

If your printer does not use one of the printer code conversion tables, see the following section for help with creating your own.

Creating a New Printer Code Conversion Table

Printer conversion tables are used to convert printing instructions to the TIS 988-2553 format, which is the WTT 2.0 default printing format. The code conversion tables listed in the WTT 2.0 standard are included with Solaris 7 TLE.

If the printer you are using does not use the TIS 988-2553 format, and cannot use any of the code conversion tables, then you need to create a custom conversion table. This section explains how to create a new printer code conversion table.

Conversion Table Syntax

The following is an example of a code conversion file:

-- -- -- -- TN -- !  TAC11x10.COD     16 AUG 1991 
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F  
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F  
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F  
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F  
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F  
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 5B 5C 5D 5E 5F  
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 6A 6B 6C 6D 6E 6F  
70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 7A 7B 7C 7D 7E 7F  
3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F  
3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F 3F  
3F A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 AA AB AC AD AE AF  
B0 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 BA BB BC BD BE BF  
C0 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 CA CB CC CD CE CF  
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 D8 D9 DA 3F 3F 3F 3F DF  
E0 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9 EA EB EC ED EE EF  
F0 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 FA FB 3F 3F 3F FF 
! End of TAC11x10.COD

The first line of a code conversion table uses the following syntax:

CC LG UM EX TN SP ! comment