TransAct Technologies ITHERM 280 - Manual (Page 265)

iTherm ® 280 Programmer’s Guide ITherm® 280 Unicode and Fonts
28-07764 Rev C Page 263
UTF-16BE is selected, all data sent to the printer must be 16 bits. All commands and command
parameters are also 16 bit, however only values between 0 and 255 are valid.
UTF-16LE uses the little-endian method of sending the two bytes. This method sends the low
byte first and then the high byte. It is not required to send the byte order mark (0xFEFF) for the
correct byte order to be initialized. However, to prevent loss of byte order synchronization, you
should periodically send the byte order mark to resynchronize the printer with your application. If
UTF-16LE is selected all data sent to the printer must be 16 bits. All commands and command
parameters are also 16 bit, however only values between 0 and 255 are valid.
UTF-8 uses a Multiple Byte Character Sequence (MBCS) to identify the desired Unicode
character. This encoding method is less straightforward but preserves some of the 8-bit
character of ASCII encoding.. This method uses unique bit sequences at the MSBs of a byte to
determine its location and meaning within the MBCS encoding. See the table below for more
information. If UTF-8 is selected all data sent to the printer must be encoded. All command
parameters over 127 must be encoded in UTF-8.
UTF-8TXT uses a Multiple Byte Character Sequence (MBCS) to identify the desired Unicode
character. This encoding method is identical to UTF-8 except command parameters over 127
are not UTF-8 encoded. They must be sent unmodified as 8-bit values.
Note: Extended UTF encoding past 65534 is not supported in UTF-16 or UTF-8. Only
Unicode addresses from 0 to 65534 are supported by the ITherm 280 Printer.
Scalar Value 1 st Byte 2nd Byte 3rd Byte
000000000xxxxxxx 0xxxxxxx
00000yyyyyxxxxxx 110yyyyy 10xxxxxx
Zzzzyyyyyyxxxxxx 1110zzzz 10yyyyyy 10xxxxxx
NOTE: 4 byte encoding is not supported.
UTF-8TXT is probably the easiest mode to use. It allows normal 8 bit
commands and graphics while still supporting the full Unicode character
encoding range. Typically ITherm 280 Printers are shipped set to this
mode.