Selecting proper laser printer driver to allow embeding of PCL-3 escape sequences

I ONLY print plain ascii text. NO Post Script. I need to embed at various places in a text file PCL-3 escape sequences AND have the laser printer respond to those sequences. All the drivers I tried strip off the leading escape char 0x1b and print the remaining characters. I do not care if I use a print spooler or not. Saying to use a "generic driver" is not specific enough to get the job done. What is the FULL PATH name of the correct driver?

1 Answer

You don't need a "driver" if you have the properly prepared PCL file. You just copy that file to the USB(?) port the printer is attached. First find the printer with

lsusb

Find the output line for the printer, looks like:

Bus 001 Device 013: ID 03f0:3112 Hewlett-Packard

Look in /dev/bus/usb/001 and you should see the character device 013:

crw-rw-r--+ 1 root lp 189, 12 Jul 19 14:41 013

Note the permissions, either put yourself into the lp group, or just use sudo on the copy:

sudo cp mypclfile.pcl /dev/bus/usb/001/013

cp does not care what file name or extension you use.
The above does not use a spooler, it is direct to printer.
The above is an example of a printer attached to the USB bus, your situation may differ, but what you would have to do, finding the device file for the printer is the same.
Randomly copying to /dev/lp0 may not work because lp0 may not even exist, it doesn't on my HP (the above USB examples are real).