Abstract: Intermixing of line heights in a buffered printer is accomplished by storing a different byte in a forms control buffer for each line of coded character data in a page to be printed. As the coded data of each line is advanced for printing by an arrangement which modulates a laser beam during scanning across a printable medium to effect the printing, the byte within the forms control buffer corresponding to the line about to be printed causes selection of the number of scans of the laser beam to be used in printing the line, thereby determining the height of each line independently of the other lines in the page. Blank lines in the page are formed by channel commands to the printer which instruct an address register associated with the forms control buffer to be incremented to cause skipping to a particular channel number identified by one of the bytes in the forms control buffer or to cause spacing by a specified number of lines.

Abstract: In a printer in which character code bytes representing characters to be printed are translated into graphic code bytes, assembled into lines and pages, and thereafter used to select character image bits which are applied to modulate a scanning laser beam and thereby effect printing of the characters, the pitch of each character is determined independently of other characters in each line being printed by pitch bits included in the sets of character image bits. As each scan line of modulation bits from a set of character image bits is selected for use in modulating the laser beam, the pitch bit included within the bits is examined to determine whether the width of the charactor is to be a maximum or some value less than the maximum. For the maximum width all of the modulation bits are applied to modulate the laser beam, while for a character cell width less than the maximum, only a selected number of the modulation bits are used to modulate the laser beam.

Abstract: In a buffered printer in which lines of graphic code bytes representing characters to be printed are successively advanced to a line buffer where they are sequentially sampled and the results used to modulate a laser beam undergoing successive scans of a printable medium to effect printing of the characters, an arrangement is provided for determining the size of the lefthand margin of the printable medium and the location adjacent the right-hand edge of the printable medium where printing is to be terminated. The arrangement sums count values representing a fixed offset adjacent the left edge of the printable medium and the distance between the end of the fixed offset and the horizontal location of the desired margin as determined by plural panel mounted switches to provide a first count which is carried out beginning with the start of each scan of the laser beam.