This is Help v6.27 for EscapeE 10.38 and above in English. EscapeE is available in several languages; select Change language from the Options menu and choose from Deutsch, English, Espanol, Francais, Portuges.

AcroForm – an interactive PDF form with buttons and boxes which users can complete and submit. See Special fields for PDF export.

AFP – 'Advanced Function Presentation' – (formerly 'Advanced Function Printing') is a data-stream format from IBM®. Presentation Text input data-elements may span data-records.

bitmap fonts Each character in a bitmap font is defined by a mosaic of black and white pixels. It cannot be scaled (unlike outline fonts), so contains the characters for one particular size and resolution only.

CaPSL – 'Canon Printing System Language' – predates PCL®; used by Canon® printers.

CID font – 'Character IDentifier' font – designed to contain a large number of Eastern pictographic characters as well as Western alphabetic characters. May be used by PS and PDF files.

ClearType  A way of rendering fonts designed for flat-screens from Microsoft®. It may improve the readability of text, but edges may exhibit color fringes.

clip region An area cut from a file for insertion into an IDF document: see CLIP.

CMYK – 'Cyan Magenta Yellow Key (black)' – a color-space used for specifying the inks used by printers. To display colors specified as CMYK values on-screen, EscapeE converts the color into RGB color-space using RTcms. See Image import/export options.

composite document A document created in EscapeE from other files, or extracts of files, and IDF code.

CSV – 'Comma Separated Variables' – data files in which field-values are delimited by specified characters, usually a comma. Data values are often enclosed within a pair of double-quotes. Each line of data-values corresponds to one data-record, usually with field-names defined in the first record of the file.

EE An ".EE" file is an EscapeE field definitions file which supplies field names found in the first record of the associated control file. Using the EscapeE composite field mechanism, field definitions may be constructed to compute filenames from the fixed data values in subsequent records in the control file. The named files are assembled into the composite document.

EPS – 'Encapsulated PostScript' – self-contained documents which may be placed within a PostScript® document, e.g. for forms overlays.

Escape sequence PCL printers work with commands that start with an 'Escape' character. For example, the sequence Esc E resets the printer and sequence Esc%#B sets up HP-GL mode.

ESC/P, ESC/P 2 – 'Escape P' – the Epson® Standard Code for Printers; a printer control language used by older printers. Epson files have various extensions but the generic .PRN is the most commonly used.

FIF – 'Font Information File' – a convenient package of the selection sequences, metrics etc. derived from a number of font files. Used by EscapeE for outputting font files in the appropriate printer-specific formats (for example .HPP files for HP printers).

file specified The file specification can be a full file path or just a name, in which case it is assumed to be in the same folder as the input file. It can also be wildcarded, for example ???xyz.ee or xyz*.ee

Flate – Deflate/Inflate loss-less compression method suitable for PDF, PDF/A, PostScript level 3 document export.

GIF – 'Graphics Interchange Format' – an image format limited to 256 colors; more suitable for diagrams than photographs.

GOCA – 'Graphics Object Content Architecture' – vector graphics for AFP. If color is set to white then it is treated as opaque.

History list  A list of the names of the most recently opened files. It is added at the end of the 'File' menu – just click to open the file. A ^ character generally precedes the name of a Control file but this does not apply to IDF files.

HSB – 'Hue Saturation Brightness' – an alternative method of specifying a color in RGB color-space; used for drawn objects in PostScript® files.

HTML – 'HyperText Mark-up Language' – files for display by a web browser such as Internet Explorer®, see HTML document file export. Early HTML versions cannot contain embedded resources and call on separate resource files unless MIME encoded.
HTML5 files can contain embedded resources such as images and may be edited in UberEd.

IDF – 'Intelligent Document Format' – the RedTitan (XML-based) document description language. This is the user-friendly format used by EscapeE for creating composite documents but is powerful enough to be used to write and export entirely new documents. Scripts in IDF have the extension ".idf". See About Composite documents and IDF and Element IDF.

LIDIL – 'Lightweight Imaging Device Interface Language' – for 'host-based' HP® printers. These low-cost printers simply print images; they rely on the host computer to effect text etc..

LPD, LPR – 'Line Printer Remote' – is the UNIX® Internet protocol for sending pre-formatted files to remote systems for printing e.g. spoolers using LPD – 'Line Printer Demon' – receivers. The data is processed before LPR connection is made, so there may be a delay before a large file is transmitted. See also To use LPR output.

LSH – LIST HP® – the RedTitan® default extension for PCL data files.

macro  Document files may be simplified by packaging any recurring blocks of statements as "macro" (.MCR) files. These are easily invoked and frequently used as overlays.

MCR  The extension used by EscapeE for storing macros in the Resident macro library. EscapeE defaults to naming the first new macro file in a document 100.MCR then adds 1 to each subsequent file number (maximum value 2147483647.MCR).

Meta data  A term used to refer to any "data about data" such as a document's keywords. See also Field TYPE attribute.

MHT  The extension for MIME encoded HTML files for display in web-browsers. In this format a single file is created that contains all the resources packaged as a Multipart/Related MIME document. See HTML MIME encoded file export.

MIME  – 'Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions' – for creating a single MHT file that contains all the resources needed to display an HTML web-page in a browser (Internet Explorer® version 5 and later).

OCR  – 'Optical Character Recognition' – techniques for matching shapes in images to characters of text.

OEM – 'Original Equipment Manufacturer' – EscapeE may be purchased directly from RedTitan® or as an OEM part of other systems, see automatic update checking.

OpenType® font A quadratic spline outline font supported by Windows®. May be coded as 'Compact Font' format with extension '.OTF' or as 'TrueType' font with extension '.TTF'.

outline fonts such as TrueType®, OpenType® and Type 1 contain a glyph for each character in the font. The glyphs are drawn as outlines defined by equations (splines) and filled in, rather than an arrangement of dots like bitmaps. The advantage of this is that they can be scaled to produce a range of sizes. The disadvantage is that the shape of the glyph may become indistinct at small sizes. Good outline fonts include rules (hints) for each character to improve their appearance at small sizes.

overlay On long print-runs of pages with variable data, it may be faster and more efficient to split jobs into 'static' and 'dynamic' content. The static content (printed on every page – like pre-printed stationery) is known as an "overlay". For more on generating and handling overlays, see Page Designer and Dynamic Document Formatter.

PCC – 'Printer Control Channel' – standard data-file format for line-printers. The character in 'column 1' is used to locate the fields (+ = overprint, 1 = skip to channel 1, 2 = skip to channel 2 etc.). See also PCC,ROW option.

PCL® – 'Printer Command Language' from Hewlett-Packard® – the default extension for EscapeE's output.

PCL source file "Source" files for printing on a "PCL" printer contain not only the document's text and image data, but instructions to the printer on how the data is to be placed, the fonts to use etc..

PDF – 'Portable Document Format' from Adobe. See also PDF/A documents archive format.

PDL is a general term for a Printer Description Language. PDL commands control the printer. Printer-manufacturers typically have their own PDLs, e.g. KPDL®.

PJL – 'Printer Job Language' – is used to set up jobs on Hewlett-Packard® printers.

PLT The extension used by EscapeE for input files in HP-GL intended for plotters (rather than the HP-PCL® used for general printing).

POS  – 'Point Of Sale' printers, e.g. for check-out receipts.

Printrex copyright by Transact. Thermal printers/plotters.

PRN The default extension usually used for files output by a 'Print' dialog.

PS – 'PostScript®' language from Adobe®.

RFF – 'Redtitan Font Format' files – contain bitmap images of text, barcode or logo fonts used in a job and stored in the Resident font library.

RGB – 'Red Green Blue' – the color-space used by most file formats to specify colors.
RGBA images contain Alpha-channel transparency information in addition to the Red, Green and Blue values.

RIF – 'RedTitan Image Format' – for storing images. Composed of color-planes of bitmaps, it is often used for logos.

RS/2 – 'RedTitan Script Two' – is a lightweight, Pascal-like scripting language which provides dynamic document features and extended field processing for EscapeE Software Development Kit. RS/2 scripts may be opened with EscapeE and its resources used to create a page from scratch. See also evaluate plugin.

RTF – 'Rich Text Format' – a file format from Microsoft®. RTF documents contain pages of formatted text in which attributes such as font family, style, weight and size defined.

Text editor  The window in which you may edit LOF control files. All of the text found in the file is simply displayed, rather than interpreted and rendered on-screen. It shows the instructions for building the pages of a composite document.

TIFF – 'Tagged Image File Format' – a ".TIF" file may contain more than one image and is often used to image pages for archive.

TrueType® font  An OpenType outline font from Apple® supported by Windows®: each character is described by quadratic splines. These glyphs can be scaled to generate fonts at a range of sizes.

TXT – "Plain text" – files containing lines of text which is not formatted (unlike RTF). See also IDF Notes on text.

Type 1 font A cubic spline outline font. It is the Adobe® font format based on PostScript® language and is used in PDF documents. Type 1 fonts can be scaled; 'hinting' may be included do improve their appearance at small sizes.

URL – 'Uniform Resource Locator' – a URI specifying a web-address such as https://www.redtitan.com.

XML – 'eXtensible Markup Language' – an "open standard" language used for data files in which each value is "marked up" with its field name.

ZjStream  Zenographics© page description language for driving printers made by several manufacturers. Consequently, file extensions vary: EscapeE recognizes these files from their opening bytes.

---