HP PCL3/PCL5 Printer Driver for EPOC

by Andrew Johnson

This page is the home of my EPOC Release 5 printer driver for Hewlett-Packard PCL3 and PCL5 printers. Related pages are available for my PostScript and Canon BJC-80 drivers. This driver was derived from Symbian's original, but various problems with the built-in ER5 driver.

This driver works with mBrainSoft's FontMachine software, which allows you to install scalable TrueType and other fonts into the system for display purposes; these fonts will print properly with this driver.

There is no version of this driver for ER3 machines (the original Series 5) because the built-in PCL5 driver works fine in ER3.

Version 1.02 fixed a control code problem with Version 1.01, which didn't work properly.

Version 1.03 adds a sythesized Euro character ('=' backspace 'C').

Version 1.04 almost fixed the IrDA printing bug.

Version 1.05 really did do so.

Version 1.06 adds the ability to include HP PJL commands, needed if your printer isn't set up to automatically switch from its PostScript to PCL5 personality. This only applies to LaserJet models, AFAIK PJL isn't supported on DeskJets.

What driver do I use if I have a Series 5, not a 5MX?

The one that's built into your Psion, which works properly as far as I know (although I've never tried it on a DeskJet, only LaserJets, and there are some internal differences that might bring out the ER3 printing bug - let me know if you'd like me to produce an ER3 version).

Is my HP printer supported? It doesn't work...

Some HP printers don't use the PCL3 or PCL5 printer control languages. For these devices you can only print using PsiWin and "Print via PC". The following HP printers are known not to work because they use different languages:

Known Problems

IrDA Printing
There's a bug in EPOC's IrDA printer port software, such that at random the last page of some multi-page documents won't be printed. If you're seeing this problem, upgrade to the latest version 1.05 of this driver which incorporates a fix.
Messages not available in my language
That's probably because nobody has sent me the text translated into that language! If you send me translations into your language, I'll add them to the build.

Download

If you have no idea what to do with the file that gets downloaded from one of the links below, there are some instructions on how to install a .SIS file on John McAleely's site.

Ericsson
MC218
Download
PCL5-ER5-106.zip
ER5 Version 1.06
Andrew Johnson
October 2001