PCX and thermal BOCA printers

[inboxmarketing]

Anyone successfully got a PCX from Imagemagick to print on a BOCA printer?

We can produce 1bit PCX files but they all print with a single pixel line at the bottom of each image that is not there in CS5.

Opening the image in CS5 and re-saving results in a file that prints with no single pixel line....

In certain apps on the PC Snagit for example the images that print with the single line open inverted in color, white on black for example.
Re-saving again fixes the issues but all programmatic created images refuse to work correctly on the BOCA...

Any ideas out there?

[compbrat75]

Hello,

A couple of questions...
Are you using FGL?
If so are you coding directly to the format file or using a GUI interface?
Does the PCX file size change from when it is created with imageMagick verses the CS5 program (Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks?)?
Also, what version of ImageMagick do you have and what operating environment are you using?

I know that FGL is very specific about the PCX file size. It's been a while since I had to load a PCX to a BOCA, but I do remember it being very picky about that file size.
Also, and this is just a stab in the dark here, check to make sure that you don't have the 'invert' command open directly before or after the pcx load command.

~Maria

[cpercheval]

Hello,

I have the same problem with a BOCA printer.
We can produce 1bit PCX files but they all print with a single pixel line at the bottom...and if we open the pcx with PaintShopPro or other and save the file (in version 0), the file is printing correctly.

We have try with a bmp file and the printing is inverted but not the file if we open it with PaintShopPro!
If we send the inverted command ("<EI>"), it's OK.

But we prefer ro use the pcx file because the older printer support only the pcx...

Thank you for your help.

Regards,

Cyril.

[lavamantis]

Old thread but I needed to get this working too. We tried BMPs and PCXs saved by Photoshop, MS Paint, and Imagemagick. None of them would work properly on the Boca (firmware FGL46N119). They either had a weird "reversed halves" issue, the entire image was inverted, there was a strange horizontal line across the bottom, or the image was completely distorted into what looked like random pixels.

Boca support told me to use a specific program to create the 1-bit monochrome images: IrfanView.

After saving the image files with IrfanView, all the images worked properly in both BMP and PCX format.

So, it looks like there are variations in what a valid format looks like under the hood in these image files, and the Boca was developed with whatever variation it is that is shared by IrfanView.

Hope this helps future developers.

[fmw42]

Did you try saving in ImageMagick as BMP3:image.bmp or BMP2:image.bmp?

Also what was your exact command line? Did you add -depth 1 and/or -type bilevel? Did you threshold the image to binary? Did you try -monochrome?