Change the Default Message on HP Printers

Posted by Gina Trapani at 8:00 PM on October 19, 2007

Flummox your coworkers with an "Insert Coin" message on the office printer using the HP Printer Job Language (HPPJL) command set. The Hackszine blog describes how to customise the Ready prompt on HP printers' LED display with a few simple commands:

I haven't been able to test yet (no HP printer here), but if I'm reading the code right, you can actually do this right from the command line using telnet. Just telnet to port 9100 and type in the following:

\e%-12345X\@PJL JOB
\@PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY="MESSAGE HERE" \@PJL EOJ
\e%-12345X

Sadly, I don't have an HP printer here to test this out either, but I'd love to see someone pull this off. If you do, let us know how it goes in the comments. (Oh yeah, and here's how to undo it when the boss hunts you down.)

Tags: office pranks | printer | scripts | top | unproductivity

Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)

Kent Bolton

Posted April 2, 2008 3:54 PM

There is a great summary of this on http://www.trilug.org/~kjotte/progcon/ .

It certainly works with the programs provided on this page ... I have set most of the printers in my office to display obscure messages.

The only problem I see with the telnet solution is that \e probably is not the escape sequence for the escape character (ASCII 27). You may have to use the ALT key down while typing 027 or similar depending on your OS.