A small box and "E" print on every page

Problem:

I am printing text data, and I get a small box and capital E on every page (or other "garbage" characters). I even selected "remove control characters before printing" but it didn't help.

Answer:

The general answer is this: if your print application is sending control characters meant for your printer, then you should use a 'pass-through' queue in RPM, not 'text'. Go to the Edit Queues dialog, look at the "Queue types" at the top of the dialog, and select "Pass data directly to printer" rather than the default "Print text, allow font selection, page setup".

However, RPM Remote Print Manager® 2.1.3 will remove certain control codes when it is printing text. This allows you to control the page layout and other features without getting the "garbage" characters. RPM will automatically remove Hewlett Packard PCL codes, but currently it does not remove codes for other printers.

To use this feature, specify a "generic HP printer" in your print application, then in RPM select the "text" queue type. Go to Queue Setup and select your fonts, margins, etc.

Also, selecting "Remove control characters before printing" instructs RPM to remove characters with value less the space, not including line terminators and tab. This is most often used to remove NULL characters.

It is unfortunate to the word "control" refers to non-printing characters less than space, and to bytes meant to control the printer. They are not the same. Bytes that control the printer frequently begin with the Escape character and are followed by a number of perfectly printable ASCII characters.