Android Question How to print Cent/Cedis Symbol with POS printer Xprinter XP 365B

[mcqueccu]

I recently bought Xprinter 365B Bluetooth/USB printer.

I am having problem printing the Cedis/Cent Symbol - GH¢ or ¢
Anyone using this same model or have can print the symbol should kindly help.

The following codes all did not work>

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[aeric]

Which code page you are using when print?
Do you see the character printer when doing Self Test?

In ESC/POS (Epson Standard Code/Printer Output System), the cent character (¢) is typically represented by the decimal value 162 or the hexadecimal value A2 in the IBM437 code page. To print it, you would use this value within your ESC/POS commands, often within a string sent to the printer.

 

[mcqueccu]

Attached Image test 2.1 is the result from Self Test listing the code pages but when I set them it does not work.
I found a test software online, and when I click the Traditional Print (highlighted in Yellow) I see the symbol

 

[mcqueccu]

This is the result from the test software. Its printed as highlighted

This is the code jsp code I found inside the test software

 

[aeric]

Which code page you are using when print?

What symbol you see?

 

[mcqueccu]

Blank - empty space

What symbol you see?

it gives Blank - empty space like (GH )


I tried different codepages from 0 to 100. All showed empty

     For i = 0 to 100
Printer1.Reset
    Sleep(1000)
    Dim cp As Int = i
    Printer1.CodePage = cp ' change this number to determine the codepage, see the printer manual
  
    Printer1.WriteString("Start of character set of Codepage " & cp & CRLF)
  
    Printer1.CharacterFont = 1
    Dim buffer(224) As Byte
    For i = 0 To 223
        buffer(i) = i + 32
    Next
    Printer1.WriteBytes(buffer)
    Printer1.WriteString(CRLF)
    Printer1.WriteString("End of character set of Codepage " & cp & CRLF & CRLF)
    Printer1.Reset
sleep(2000)
Next

Copilot suggested several subs like below (SORRY FORUM NOT ALLOWING ME TO POST THE CODE)

 

[aeric]

Have you tried using WriteString ?
e.g

Printer1.WriteString("30¢" & CRLF)
Printer1.WriteString("60" & Chr (162) & CRLF)

 

[aeric]

(SORRY FORUM NOT ALLOWING ME TO POST THE CODE)

Put a space after Chr or before opening bracket for some functions/keywords.

 

[aeric]

I tested with code page 16 okay

Printer1.codepage = 16 ' Windows 1252

Printer1.WriteString("10" & Chr (162) & "- 20¢" & CRLF & CRLF)

https://github.com/pyhoon/bpos/tree/aeric

 

[Peter Simpson]

Have you tried changing the code page to 850 or 1252 then printing HEX 9B or ASCII 155???

I always have to change the code page setting to 1252 when printing a Pound Sign (£) in my apps.

Enjoy...

 

[mcqueccu]

I will try the suggestions and report back.

 

[mcqueccu]

Thanks @aeric and @Peter Simpson for your help. These printer gave me really hard time, and countless waste of paper. But if finally works.

I tried all the code pages, and your suggestions but it was not working. Later I switched to chatgpt. After a few back and forth and revisions, changing of FONTS, etc, it concluded that the font glyph was not matched properly, that it was using DOUBLE BYTE MODE.

What it’s doing​

1. 0x1C 0x26 (FS &)
   Tells the printer to start "Chinese character mode" (double-byte character mode).
   This makes the printer interpret the next bytes as double-byte characters (like Big5 or GB2312), not single-byte ASCII.
2. 0x1C 0x43 0x01 (FS C 1)
   Sets the Chinese character system to Big5 (0x01 = Big5, 0x00 would be GB2312).
   This is why Notepad++ detects “Big5 (Traditional)”.
3. 0xA2 0xE3
   This is the actual Big5 encoding for the ¢ (cent) symbol.
   In Big5, the byte pair A2E3 maps to U+00A2 (¢).
4. 0x1C 0x2E (FS .)
   Ends Chinese character mode, going back to single-byte mode.

After writing this code to cancel the Chinese mode, the other codes started to work

    ' Full initialization + force CP850
    Dim initSeq() As Byte = Array As Byte( _
    0x1B, 0x40, _        ' ESC @   → Full reset (clear settings, reset mode)
    0x1B, 0x52, 0x00, _  ' ESC R 0 → Set international character set to USA
    0x1B, 0x74, 0x04, _  ' ESC t 4 → Set code page to CP850
    0x1C, 0x2E _          ' FS .    → Ensure Chinese mode is cancelled
    )

    ' Initialize printer to CP850
    Printer1.WriteBytes(initSeq)
  
    Printer1.WriteString("10" & Chr (162) & "- 20¢" & CRLF & CRLF)

    ' Now print the Cedi/Cent symbol in CP850
    Printer1.WriteBytes(Array As Byte(0x9B))
    Printer1.WriteString(" 5.00" & CRLF)

Public Sub setCodePageFixed(codepage As Int)
    ' Build the ESC/POS sequence based on your fix
    Dim sequence As String
    sequence = ESC & "@" & _               ' Reset printer
               ESC & "R" & Chr ( 0 ) & _      ' International charset: USA
               ESC & "t" & Chr ( codepage ) & _ ' Set codepage dynamically
               FS & "."                   ' Cancel Chinese mode
    
    ' Send it to the printer
    WriteString(sequence)
End Sub