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Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 10:18 pm
One of the more frustrating things to do is to attempt to stabilize a page, both the background image and the overprint data, when printing multiple pages using either PCL or NWP. I have found that beginning the printing with TOP0 or TOP4 etc., before printing the background image works most of the time. Normally, in my experience, page one is positioned slightly different from the remaining pages. That is fairly easy to program around with positioning statements like ROWCOL. However I have recently encountered a situation where using a TOP command was insufficient to stabilize the image starting with page 3. In other words the output positioning on page 3 and beyond was different from pages 1 and 2.
The resolution to this problem was to set the vertical motion index (VMI) prior to issuing the TOP command. Since LPI is one method of setting VMI, I used [6LPI][TOP4] ahead of printing anything on the page. That worked. Apparently the VMI was drifting between pages, even though my LPI processing was the same on all pages. The TOP command uses VMI to position vertically.
I experienced this and corrected it using only NWP. I do not know if the this problem or resolution applies to PCL (hardware).
The resolution to this problem was to set the vertical motion index (VMI) prior to issuing the TOP command. Since LPI is one method of setting VMI, I used [6LPI][TOP4] ahead of printing anything on the page. That worked. Apparently the VMI was drifting between pages, even though my LPI processing was the same on all pages. The TOP command uses VMI to position vertically.
I experienced this and corrected it using only NWP. I do not know if the this problem or resolution applies to PCL (hardware).