7197 Series II Owner’s Guide    Chapter 6:  Commands 
 August 2011 
94
 
Set Absolute Starting Position 
ASCII: 
ESC $ n1 n2 
Hexadecimal: 
1B 24 n1 n2 
Decimal: 
27 36 n1 n2 
Value of n: 
Number of dots to be moved from the beginning of 
the line. 
Value of n1: 
Remainder after dividing n by 256. 
Value of n2: 
Integer after dividing n by 256. 
 
The values for n1 and n2 are two bytes in low byte, high byte word orientation. 
Sets the print starting position to the specified number of dots (up to the right margin) 
from the beginning of the line. The print starting position is reset to the first column after 
each line. 
Formulas:  
Determine the value of n by multiplying the column for the absolute starting position by 
10 (standard pitch) or 8 (compressed pitch). The example shows how to calculate column 
29 (10 dots per column) as the absolute starting position. 
28 x 10 = 280 dots (beginning of column 29) 
280/256 = 1, remainder of 24 
n1 = 24  n2 = 1 
  Example: 
  MSComm1.Output = Chr$(&H1B) & Chr$(&H24) & Chr$(n1) & Chr$(n2)  
Related Information: 
This command is also used in the graphics mode. See Graphics Commands in this chapter 
for more information. 
If the Set Horizontal and Vertical Minimum Motion Units command (1D 50) is used to 
change the horizontal and vertical minimum motion unit, the parameters of this command 
(Set Absolute Print Position) will be interpreted accordingly. For more information, see the 
description of the Set Horizontal and Vertical Minimum Motion Units command (1D 50) 
in this document.