Create Custom Separator Pages in Windows Server 2012

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Applies To: Windows Server 2012

Windows allows you to specify a separator page file to print at the start of each print job. Several separator page files are included with Windows in the %windir%\system32 folder. In addition, you can create custom separator page files to suit your individual needs.

In a Branch Office Direct Printing environment, the specified separator page is copied automatically from the print server to the print client if the file size is less than 64 KB. The print client then uses the separator page when printing directly to the local printer. For more information about Branch Office Direct Printing, see Branch Office Direct Printing Overview.

Create a custom separator page file

Use a text editor such as Notepad to create a custom separator page file. On the first line, type a single character, and then press ENTER. The character on this line defines the character used as an escape character. For example, the examples in this article assume that the escape character is the forward slash character (/).

Use the following procedure to create a custom separator page file.

To create a custom separator page file

  1. Open your separator page file.

  2. Type your escape character on the first line.

  3. Type the escape codes for the functions you want, and then save the file with an .sep extension in the Windows SYSTEM32 subfolder.

  4. In Print Management, right-click the printer that you want to use the separator page file with, and then click Properties.

  5. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Separator Page.

  6. Type the path for your separator page file, or click Browse to browse for the file and then click OK.

  7. Click OK to close the Properties page.

The following table describes the escape codes and their functions that can be used in a separator page file:

Note

/J

/Hnn

Sets a printer-specific control sequence, where nn is a hexadecimal ASCII code sent directly to the printer. To determine the specific numbers, see your printer manual.

/Wnn

Sets the width of the separator page. The default width is 80; the maximum width is 256. Any printable characters beyond this width are truncated.

/U

Turns off block character printing.

/B/S

Prints text in single-width block characters until @U is encountered.

/B/M

Prints text in double-width block characters until /U is encountered.

/E

Ejects a page from the printer. Use this code to start a new separator page or to end the separator page file. If you get an extra blank separator page when you print, remove this code from your separator page file.

/n

Skips n number of lines (from 0 through 9). Skipping 0 lines moves printing to the next line.

See also