PRINT FORMATTING ON THE TANDY 600 Donald R. Clerc 72346,572 The Tandy 600 portable computer Owner's Manual does not mention how to send formatting codes to the printer; i.e., underlining, changing fonts, etc. Yet that does not mean that it cannot be done. I have found an easy way to send any code (including ESCape sequences to most printers) with any Tandy 600 built-in application. All you need is your printer manual and Appendix D -- ASCII Character Codes from the Tandy 600 Owner's Manual. For the purposes of this document, I will talk about sending codes to an Epson printer. This method has also been used successfully on an IBM Proprinter, and with limited success on the CGP-220 Ink Jet printer. Sending non-ESCape codes to any printer is very easy. If you want the printer switched to the compressed mode, for example, look in your printer manual for the code. It can be in either decimal or hexadecimal. The code for Epson printers is decimal 15. Now looking in Appendix D of the 600 manual, the Key Top Character for decimal 15 is CTRL-O (the letter O, not the number zero.) Keep in mind that case is significant, so press the CAPS LOCK key for a capital O. Pressing CTRL-O with the CAPS LOCK on does not produce the same code as pressing SHIFT-CTRL-o, so make sure and use the CAPS LOCK key. Wherever you want the printer in the compressed mode, press CTRL-O. You will see a "star" symbol on the screen, but it will not be printed. The code for turning off the compressed mode is decimal 18, which translates to CTRL-R. Pressing CTRL-R produces an "up-down arrow" on the screen. That's all there is to it. Sending ESCape code sequences are a little more complicated, but not much. As you know, the ESCape key on the Tandy 600 stops whatever you are doing and sends the cursor to the menu line. Therefore, you cannot just press the ESCape key to send an ESCape code to the printer. The code for ESCape is decimal 27. I have found that an ESCape code can be sent to most printers by adding decimal 128 to the decimal 27, producing decimal 155. Decimal code 155 is produced by pressing SHIFT-ALT-4. While holding down the SHIFT and ALT keys, press the number four key on the top row of the keyboard. The symbol produced on the screen is the cent sign. Then you can follow this by whatever other codes are necessary to get the job done. Turning on underlining with the Epson printer, for example, is accomplished with ESC-hyphen-1. To do that with the Tandy 600, type SHIFT-ALT-4, then the hyphen, then the number one. You will see the cent sign followed by the hyphen and the number one on the screen, yet they will not be printed. Turning off underlining is ESC-hyphen-0, so you type SHIFT-ALT-4, then the hyphen, then the number zero. I was able to produce all 160 different typestyles with the Epson printer using my Tandy 600. This method of sending ESCape codes does not work with my CGP-220 Ink Jet printer. Apparently it does not like the decimal 155 for the ESCape code. You will just have to try this method and see if it will work with your particular printer. As I said earlier, it does work for Epson and IBM printers. By the way, these codes work with all built-in applications, not just Word. It is very useful to turn on the compressed mode for spreadsheet applications under Plan, for example. The only drawback I have found is that these codes take up space on the screen, which can upset your margins. For example, to start and stop underlining on one line takes a total of six characters. Even though those six characters will not be printed, they probably have caused the last word on the line to be wrapped to the next line, leaving a right margin that is more ragged than usual. This problem will essentially prevent you from justifying any paragraph which has one of these extended print formatting sequences. If you are changing print pitch (i.e., going from pica to expanded, compressed, or elite), you might want to put the codes on the line prior to the line where you want the codes to take effect. The problem is a little more severe in Plan. Since the printer does not print those formatting codes, the cells that are to the right of print formatting codes do not line up with the rest of the columns. A little trial-and-error experimenting with moving the text further to the right within a cell will line up everything when it is printed. In conclusion, you can send nearly any code that you choose to the printer. You can underline, boldface, or change the pitch. Even though Tandy decided not to put the fullest or latest implementation of Microsoft Word into the Tandy 600, I think that it is an excellent word processor for a portable computer. It is not just another text editor.