We have a cobol application that prints to an LPQ1000 printer that we are having a strange issue with.  The cobol app has a output record set to 132 characters.  For spacing for correct forms alignment the app writes spaces to the output record for however many lines it needs to be moved down on the form. (kinda standard, I think...)

What happens during this process is the printer appears to delay when printing.  It prints the data line (not blank) then kind of spins for a second or two and then moves and continues... kind of herky jerky....

We've had the LPQ's for a few years and do  not know if this is unique to the LPQ or is this behavior the same on all line printers. 

I did a test changing the FD in a test cobol program to this:
 FD  REPT-FILE
     RECORD IS VARYING IN SIZE FROM 1 TO 132
        CHARACTERS DEPENDING ON LINE-SIZE.
 01  REPT-REC             PIC X(132).

and then set the LINE-SIZE variable to 1 for the blank lines and the printer printed continuously, no pauses. Doing this changed the spoolfile from having all spaces for 132 chars to having only 1 space in the empty print lines.

Is this something unique to the LPQ's or was it always this way.... and is there a way to get it to print continually?

thanks, bob

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