A line feed at the beginning of a line (that is, immediately following a carriage return) seems to behave normally, but if the line feed is in the middle of a line, the printer starts any text that occurs after that character on the next printed line at column 1.
The ImageWriter II Technical Reference Manual (ISBN #0-201-17739-0), Chapter 5: Page Formatting, page 75, says:
"When you turn on the ImageWriter II, it's set to print out the data in the print buffer and to insert a carriage return (CR) before every line feed (LF) or form feed (FF) character it receives."
The user can control whether a CR is inserted before each LF or FF by sending specific codes to disable this function. To disable the CR insertion, send an Esc l (lower case L) 1 (one). To enable CR insertion before LF and FF, send Esc l (lower case L) 0 (zero).
Sending the Escl1 will suppress the CR after LF and permit the type of printing you wish. (See the example of on page 76 in the same manual.)