AVERY DENNISON PCL is a description language for the AVERY DENNISON PCL printers. PCL allows a user to describe a tag layout to a printer. Also PCL allows a user to send multiple sets of information to a printer. These sets of information will be printed using either a tag layout that was sent to the printer using PCL or a tag layout that is stored on the printer.

A tag layout is known as a format. A format contains all the physical descriptions of a tag or label. These descriptions include tag size, sense mark position, field positions, field types, field sizes, etc…, everything the printer needs to know in order to build and print the tag or label. The formats can be sent to a printer using PCL just prior to the information that is to be printed or the formats can reside in the printer. If the formats reside in the printer then PCL is only needed to send the information that is to be printed.

The multiple sets of information are known as Batch Data or just Batches. Batches consist of character data sent to the printer in the order specified by the format. This information is plugged into the format and a tag is created. The number of tags to be printed using this information is known as the quantity. The quantity is also sent with the batch data.

The following sections in this document explain how to make a format and send it to the printer and also explains how to present the batch data to the printer. These sections give realistic examples that can be referred to when making a format. All of the AVERY DENNISON PCL commands are not covered in the Users Guide. A complete guide for the AVERY DENNISON PCL commands is included in the AVERY DENNISON Printer Control Language Reference Manual.

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