HP PCL/PJL reference (PCL 5 Printer Language) - Technical Reference Manual Part I

8-10 PCL Font Selection EN
Pitch Command
The Pitch command designates the horizontal spacing of a
fixed- spaced (bitmap or scalable) font in terms of the number of
characters per inch. This characteristic is ignored when selecting a
proportionally-spaced (bitmap or scalable) font, but is saved in the
font select table and available when a fixed-spaced font is selected.
E
C
( s # H - Primary pitch
E
C
) s # H - Secondary pitch
# = # = Pitch in characters/inch
Default = 10
Range = 0.00
The value field (#) is valid to two decimal places.
If a pitch is specified that is not available, the next greater available
pitch is selected. If no greater value is available, the closest available
lesser value is selected.
The factory default primary and secondary pitches are ten characters
per inch.
The user default primary and secondary pitches are implicitly set by
selection of a users default font from the printer’s control panel (refer
to the printer User’s Manual).
The range of valid pitch selections for a fixed-spaced scalable font is
576 to .10 characters/inch, however, not all valid pitches are available,
since the pitch value is actually converted to a corresponding point
size (height) value which is scaled by the printer. The effective pitch
ranges are thus limited by height constraints.
The lower end of the pitch range is limited as a result of the font
height limitation of 999.75 points. For example, the smallest available
pitch for the internal Courier typeface would be about 0.12.
The upper end of the pitch range is similarly limited by the minimum
recommended font height of 4 points. For Courier, this translates to a
maximum recommended pitch of 30 (30 cpi), while for Letter Gothic
the maximum recommended pitch is 36. When requested pitch values
are outside of HP’s recommended limits, unsatisfactory results can
occur.