In
computers, a printer driver or a print processor is a piece of
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
on a computer that converts the data to be printed to a format that a
printer can understand. The purpose of printer drivers is to allow applications to do printing without being aware of the technical details of each printer model.
Printer drivers should not be confused with
print spoolers, which queue
print jobs and send them successively to a printer.
Printer drivers in different operating systems
Unix and Unix-like
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
and other
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
systems such as
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
and
OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
use
CUPS (short for Common Unix Printing System), a modular printing system for Unix-like computer operating systems, which allows a computer to act as a
print server. A computer running CUPS is a host that can accept print jobs from client computers, process them, and send them to the appropriate printer. Printer drivers are typically implemented as
filters
Filter, filtering or filters may refer to:
Science and technology
Computing
* Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming
* Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream
* Filter (video), a software component th ...
. They are usually named the ''front end'' of the printing system, while the printer spoolers constitute the ''back end''.
Backends are also used to determine the available devices. On startup, each backend is asked for a list of devices it supports, and any information that is available.
DOS
DOS supports predefined character devices
PRN:
,
LPT1:
,
LPT2:
and
LPT3:
associated with parallel printers supported in the system. Similarly, serial printers can be used with
AUX:
,
COM1:
,
COM2:
,
COM3:
and
COM4:
.
Users can use commands like, for example, "
COPY ''file1'' LPT1:
" to print the content of a file to a printer. The contents is transferred to the printer without any interpretation. Therefore, this method of printing is either for files already stored in the corresponding printer's language or for generic
text file
A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flatfile) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operat ...
s without more than simple line-oriented formatting.
DOS also provides a dynamically loadable print spooler named
PRINT
Printing is the process for reproducing text and images using a master form or template
Print or printing may also refer to:
Publishing
* Canvas print, the result of an image printed onto canvas which is often stretched, or gallery-wrapped, o ...
as well as optional support to support screen captures also in graphics mode through
GRAPHICS. If the optional character device driver
PRINTER.SYS is loaded, DOS provides its
code page switching support also for the associated printers—different types of
dot matrix and
ink jet printers are supported by default.
Beyond this, there are no system-wide printer-specific drivers for use at application level under MS-DOS/PC DOS. Under DR-DOS, however, the
SCRIPT
Script may refer to:
Writing systems
* Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire
* Script (styles of handwriting)
** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of ha ...
command can be loaded to run in the background in order to intercept and convert printer output from applications into
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, ...
to support PS-capable printers also by applications not supporting them directly.
In order to support more complex printing for different models of printers, each application (e.g. a
word processor
A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...
) may be shipped with its own printer drivers, which were essentially descriptions of printer
escape sequences. Printers, too, have been supplied with drivers for the most popular applications. In addition, it's possible for applications to include tools for editing printer description, in case there was no ready driver. In the days when DOS was widely used, many printers had emulation modes for
Epson FX-80 and
IBM Proprinter commands. Many more recent
laser printer
Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" t ...
s also have emulation modes for
HP PCL PCL may refer to:
Aviation
*FAP Captain David Abenzur Rengifo International Airport, near Pucallpa, Peru (IATA code: PCL)
*Pilot-controlled lighting, a system by which aircraft pilots can control the lighting of runways and taxiways via radio cont ...
(HP LaserJet) or
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, ...
printers which will work in DOS. It appears that these are also compatible with Windows 3.x.
Windows
On
Microsoft Windows systems, printer drivers make use of
GDI (
Unidrv or
PScript-based) or
XPS (XPSDrv). Programs then use the same standard
APIs
Apis or APIS may refer to:
* Apis (deity), an ancient Egyptian god
* Apis (Greek mythology), several different figures in Greek mythology
* Apis (city), an ancient seaport town on the northern coast of Africa
**Kom el-Hisn, a different Egyptian ci ...
to draw text and pictures both on screen and on paper. Printers which use GDI natively are commonly referred to as
Winprinters and are considered incompatible with other operating systems, although there is software (such as PrintFil) which will make these printers work in a DOS prompt within Windows.
Win32 APIs also allow applications to send data directly to the spooler, bypassing the printer driver; however, few applications actually use this option.
The printer driver is usually located on the C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository folder on a Windows machine.
Amiga
The original AmigaOS up to 1.3 supported printers through a standard series of drivers stored at the required path "DEVS:Printers". All printer drivers were stored in that directory, and covered the standard printers in 1985-1989 circa, included
Epson FX standard driver,
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...
4020, HP, etcetera.
Any Amiga printer driver had to communicate though the standard Amiga printer.device (the default standard hardware device of Amiga dealing with printers), and the standard parallel.device (which controlled parallel port) and the driver would then control the printer on its own.
Amiga printer drivers were an innovation for their time. They spared users from individually configuring each of their applications. They had the ability to print up to 4096 colors.
Through the use of the Printer Preferences program printers could be connected to the serial port as well.
Amiga also had support for a virtual device "PRT:" to refer to printer.device so, for example the command "COPY file TO PRT:" caused the file to be printed directly bypassing parallel.device and the default printer driver.
Amiga used
ANSI escape code
ANSI escape sequences are a standard for in-band signaling to control cursor location, color, font styling, and other options on video text terminals and terminal emulators. Certain sequences of bytes, most starting with an ASCII escape ch ...
s, not the special ones defined by the various printer manufacturers. This way every application on the Amiga could use the same standard set of control sequences and wouldn't need to know which printer is actually connected. The printer driver then translated these standard sequences into the special sequences a certain printer understands.
Amiga internal function "PWrite" of printer.device writes 'length' bytes directly to the printer. This function is generally called on by printer drivers to send their buffer(s) to the printer. Number of buffers are decided by the persons who created the driver. Amiga lacked a standard Printer Spooler.
Since AmigaOS 2.0 a standard printer.device was changed to control various printers at same time. The Printer preferences were divided in three main panels: ''Prefs:Printer'' which selects main printer and other basic elements such as "Print Spacing" and "Paper Size". ''PrinterGFX'' controlled features like Dithering and Scaling. ''PrinterPS'' controlled Postscript Printers. The printer drivers surprisingly remained almost same of Workbench 1.3, with 4096 limits.
This fact led Amiga users to prefer third party Printer Systems with their own drivers, like
TurboPrint and
PrintStudio, which introduced not only recent drivers, but also featured a functioning Printer Spooler into Amiga, and featured 16 million colors printing.
MorphOS uses a special version of TurboPrint to pilot recent printers.
Many Amiga programs like DTP programs as
PageStream featured in the past its own printer drivers.
USB printers are automatically recognized by the
Poseidon
Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ch ...
USB Stack. This stack is capable of detecting any USB device by its class, but printers still require a driver to be controlled.
Types of drivers
In addition to being install-able on a computer, drivers could also be present in the embedded firmware of printers and made available through a networking protocol (e.g. IPP). The embedded firmware of a printer could thus eliminate the need to install any driver on a computer, by accepting print data in a general purpose format (e.g. PDF) via a networking protocol. Despite some efforts to standardize various stages of the printing pipeline, printer interfaces are largely still very proprietary and manufacturer-specific. Hence, nature of functions performed by drivers can vary. Nonetheless, based on the function performed, drivers can be classified as follows.
Device-independent converters
These drivers can convert print data from one general purpose format (e.g. PDF, DVI etc) to another general purpose format (e.g. PS). Examples include Ghostscript, etc.
Converters to device-specific format
These drivers convert print data from one format (e.g. PS) to a final device-specific format that the printer hardware can process and create a print. These drivers act as the last stage in delivering a print job to the printer. These drivers are more likely to be embedded in printer firmware.
Examples of manufacturer specific formats include:
*
Printer Command Language
Printer Command Language, more commonly referred to as PCL, is a page description language (PDL) developed by Hewlett-Packard as a printer protocol and has become a ''de facto'' industry standard. Originally developed for early inkjet print ...
(PCL) (
Hewlett-Packard)
* PostScript (PS) (
Adobe
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...
)
* Ink Jet Printer Data Stream (
Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
)
* Samsung Printer Language
* Ultra Fast Rendering (
Canon)
Packaging formats
Install-able drivers can be packaged in various formats. PPD is a popular packaging format for drivers that accept Postscript data or PDF data as input. Due to dominance of select operating systems, the operating system–driver interface is more standardized than driver–printer interfaces. Hence there is more standardization in packaging formats of drivers than the actual functions performed by drivers.
* PostScript Printer Description file Usually the operating system needs to know the characteristics of a printer. The
PPD files are the normal way to supply this information. They have the advantage of being system independent, and there is a freely available large database of them,
Foomatic.
* CUPS filter This format is used by
CUPS on Linux systems.
See also
*
CUPS
*
ESC/P
ESC/P, short for Epson Standard Code for Printers and sometimes styled Escape/P, is a printer control language developed by Epson to control computer printers. It was mainly used in dot matrix printers and some inkjet printers, and is still wide ...
*
HP Universal Print Driver
HP Universal Print Driver (UPD) is an intelligent print driver that supports a broad range of HP LaserJet printers and MFPs. Developed by Hewlett-Packard, it combines a general purpose driver (UNIDRV or PSCRIPT) and HP proprietary extensions. HP ...
(HP UPD)
*
List of emulators
*
Open-source hardware
*
PostScript Printer Description (PPD)
*
Print (command)
*
Printer Command Language
Printer Command Language, more commonly referred to as PCL, is a page description language (PDL) developed by Hewlett-Packard as a printer protocol and has become a ''de facto'' industry standard. Originally developed for early inkjet print ...
(PCL)
*
Windows Vista printing technologies
*
Virtual printer
*
XML Paper Specification (XPS)
*
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating syste ...
(PDF)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Printer Driver
Device drivers
Computer printers