Adding Accented Letters to a Ticket Face

Printing accented letters on tickets limits you to using Font F13. This means for any field that has an accented letter within it, the line must use font F13 (other lines of coding can be any other font you wish). This is the only available font within the default language for the ticket printer that uses the extended ASCII character set. Click here to download a table of Font 13 codes or refer to the table at the bottom of this help page.

Why don't thermal printers support accents in all fonts?

Automatic printing of French or other European characters is not easily done using ticket printers. To understand why, is a bit of a trip through computer history. ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding system based on the English Alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, printers and any other device that uses text. ASCII first came from telegraphic codes. Its first commercial application was a code for teleprinters. It began in the 1960s and the last update to the character set was in 1986. It was the standard world wide until 2008 when it was surpassed by UTF-8.

As computer technology spread, the ASCII character set spread with it and the Europeans decided to get creative and put some accented characters in some of the empty slots in the character set -- where these characters was not standardized into the exteneded ASCII set until the 1970's. Because of this the characters are non-standard and their placement in the listing in irregular.

Because this was a large problem, they invented UTF-8 (about 1992 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8) , the universal character set. UTF 8 is designed to hold 2 billion plus character combinations, including the entire Chinese character set. All new computers, realizing that foreign language is a benefit, support this. Theatre Manager is fully UTF8 -- you can put accented characters into the database. You can print them on reports. You can add them to emails. all those products also understand UTF8 so characters are no issue.

Unfortunately, it is not the same for the ticket printers. Ticket printers do not understand UTF 8. They are limited to ASCII and a few variations. The only font supplied with the printers is the extended ASCII set in Font 13. Click here to access the Practical Automation Printer manual.

How to use FONT 13 to get accented characters

In some instances, a Play or Event title or other piece of information you need to print on a ticket face, includes an accented letter. The following instructions will allow you to make that edit.

1. Chose Setup --> Ticket Faces to open the Ticket Face List Window.

   

   For more information on the click here.

In order to have accented characters appear on a ticket face, you will need to HARD CODE the accent onto the ticket face. For Example, to have Théatre appear on a ticket face,

2. Create a new ticket face, or a duplicate of an exiting ticket face.

   This will allow you to continue using the original ticket face for your events that do not require any accented characters. For more information on designing ticket faces, please click here.

3. Double-click the line of ticket face code to edit to include the accented text.

   This opens the Ticket Face Detail window for that line of code.

   

   For information about formatting ticket faces, click here.

4. Select Font F13 from the Font Drop Down Menu. .

   Selection of any font, other than F13, will print "?" for the character. Any other fonts available do not reference the extended ASCII character set.

Click here to download a table of Font 13 codes.



5. Enter the Code con(chr(128),'a devrait 'chr(136)'tre moi')

   To add the title:Ça devrait être moi

   

Font 13 Characters and Numbers

Click here to download a table of Font 13 codes.

Dec	Char	Description	Dec	Char	Description
128	Ç	Latin upper case C with cedilla	192		Graphic Character
129	ü	Latin lower case u with diaeresis	193		"
130	é	Latin lower case e with acute	194		"
131	â	Latin lower case a with circumflex	195		"
132	ä	Latin upper case A with circumflex	196		"
133	à	Latin lower case a with grave	197		"
134	å	Pilcrow sign	198	ã	Latin lower case a with tilde
135	ç	Latin lower case c with cedilla	199	Ã	Latin upper case A with tilde
136	ê	Latin lower case e with circumflex	200		Graphic Character
137	ë	Latin lower case e with umlaut	201		"
138	è	Latin lower case e with grave	202		"
139	ï	Latin lower case i with umlaut	203		"
140	î	Latin lower case i with circumflex	204		"
141	ì	Double low line	205		"
142	Ä	Latin upper case A with grave	206		"
143	Å	Section sign	207		"
144	É	Latin upper case E with acute	208	ð	Latin lowercase eth
145	æ	ligature	209	Ð	Latin uppercase Eth
146	Æ	Latin upper  ligature	210	Ê	Latin upper case E with circumflex
147	ô	Latin lower case o with circumflex	211	Ë	Latin upper case E with umlat
148	ö	Latin lower case o with umlaut	212	È	Latin upper case E with accent
149	ò	Latin lower case o with grave	213		Latin lower case dotless i
150	û	Latin lower case u with circumflex	214	Í	Latin upper case I with accent
151	ù	Latin lower case u with grave	215	Î	Latin upper case I with circumflex
152	ÿ	Latin lower case y with umlaut	216	Ï	Latin upper case I with umlaut
153	Ö	Latin upper case O with umlaut	217		Graphic Caracter
154	Ü	Latin upper case U with umlaut	218		"
155	ø	Small slashed zero	219		"
156	£	Pound Sign	220		"
157	Ø	Large slashed zero	221		"
158	x	Times	222	Ì	Latin upper case I with grave
159	ƒ	Latin lower case f with hook	223		Graphic Character
160	á	Latin lower case a with acute	224	Ó	Latin upper case O with accent
161	í	Latin lower case i with acute	225	ß	Eszett or Sharp S
162	ó	Latin lower case o with acute	226	Ô	Latin upper case O with circumflex
163	ú	Latin lower case u with acute	227	Ò	Latin upper case O with grave
164	ñ	Latin lower case n with tilde	228	õ	Latin lower case O with tilde
165	Ñ	Latin upper case N with tilde	229	Õ	Latin upper case O with tilde
166	ª	feminine ordinal indicator	230	µ	Micro sign
167	º	Degree Symbol	231	þ	Lower case letter Thorn
168	¿	Inverted Question Mark	232	Þ	Upper case letter Thorn
169	®	Registered Trade Mark - note it is not the 'tm' symbol	233	Ú	Latin upper case U with acute
170	¬	Not sign	234	Û	Latin upper case U with circumflex
171	½	Fraction one half	235	Ù	Latin upper case U with grave
172	¼	Fraction one quarter	236	ý	Latin lower case y with acute
173	¡	Reversed Exclamation Mark	237	Ý	Latin upper case Y with acute
174	«	Left-pointing double angle quotation mark	238		Graphic character
175	»	Right-pointing double angle quotation mark	239		"
176		Graphic character	240		"
177		"	241		"
178		"	242		"
179		"	243		"
180		"	244		"
181	Á	Latin upper case A with acute	245		"
182	Â	Latin upper case A with circumflex	246		"
183	À	Latin upper case A with grave	247		"
184	©	Copyright	248		"
185		Graphic Character	249		"
186		"	250		"
187		"	251		"
188		"	252
189	¢	Cent Sign	253		"
190	¥	Yen	254		"
191		Graphic Character	255		"