8-10   PCL Font Selection EN
Pitch Command 
The Pitch command designates the horizontal spacing of a 
fixed- spaced (bitmap or scalable) font in terms of the number of 
characters per inch. This characteristic is ignored when selecting a 
proportionally-spaced (bitmap or scalable) font, but is saved in the 
font select table and available when a fixed-spaced font is selected.
E
C
 ( s # H -  Primary pitch
E
C
 ) s # H -  Secondary pitch
#  =  # = Pitch in characters/inch 
Default = 10
Range = 0.00
The value field (#) is valid to two decimal places.
If a pitch is specified that is not available, the next greater available 
pitch is selected. If no greater value is available, the closest available 
lesser value is selected.
The factory default primary and secondary pitches are ten characters 
per inch.
The user default primary and secondary pitches are implicitly set by 
selection of a users default font from the printer’s control panel (refer 
to the printer User’s Manual).
The range of valid pitch selections for a fixed-spaced scalable font is 
576 to .10 characters/inch, however, not all valid pitches are available, 
since the pitch value is actually converted to a corresponding point 
size (height) value which is scaled by the printer. The effective pitch 
ranges are thus limited by height constraints.
The lower end of the pitch range is limited as a result of the font 
height limitation of 999.75 points. For example, the smallest available 
pitch for the internal Courier typeface would be about 0.12.
The upper end of the pitch range is similarly limited by the minimum 
recommended font height of 4 points. For Courier, this translates to a 
maximum recommended pitch of 30 (30 cpi), while for Letter Gothic 
the maximum recommended pitch is 36. When requested pitch values 
are outside of HP’s recommended limits, unsatisfactory results can 
occur.