>>Hi all,
>>
>>I need to send hexidecimal commands to an Epson LQ-570e dotmatrix printer in order to print a barcode on a document. Just trying to send the commands with

?? 0x1B 0x28 0x42 && command to print a barcode

gives a syntax error. Do I need to set up ASCII variables and use

TRANSFORM(variable, format)

to get VFP to send hex codes? Will just assigning a hex value to a variable

local lnPrintBarCodeCmd
>>lnPrintBarCodeCmd = '0x1B 0x28 0x42'
>>??  lnPrintBarCodeCmd

give me what I need?
>>
>>Hacking away....TIA
>
>Try

??? CHR(0x1B) + CHR(0x28) + CHR(0x42)

Remember, that it wouldn't work if you print thru Windows driver because it will discard all none printable characters.

I gave it a try. Here is the test code. What the printer output were the ASCII characters for the command to begin barcode printing and the data that came behind the command. 0x1B is hex for ESC which is needed to get the printer's attention. Is this what you mean by non-printing charaters?

lnMargin = 3
lnLine = 0
? " "
? " "
? " "
? CHR(0x1B) + CHR(0x28) + CHR(0x42) + CHR(0x0D) + CHR(0x00);
+CHR(0x05);
+CHR(0x02);
+CHR(0x00);
+CHR(0x7D) + CHR(0x00);
+CHR(0x00);
+CHR(0x31) + CHR(0x32) + CHR(0x41) + CHR(0x42) + CHR(0x24) + CHR(0x25) + CHR(0x2E) at lnMargin+76
lnLine = lnLine+1
? "This is a Test"						at lnMargin+50 font "Courier New" ,12 style "B"
lnLine = lnLine+1