You access the printer features by sending PCL commands. Due to its scope, this manual covers only basic explanation of PCL commands. If you are not familiar with PCL commands, you may want to obtain the [PCL Technical Reference Manual], part number 5021-0377 from HP.

A PCL command always begins with the ESC character (referred as <esc> throughout of this manual). The ASCII value for this character is 27. It is followed by one or two characters (called commands). A PCL command may contain parameters, and termination characters. For example, the following command selects a font with 12 points in height:

<esc>(s12V

The (s represents the Height command, 12 is the parameter and V is the termination character.