A printer driver is a software program that understands how to communicate with printers and plotters. Printer drivers translate the information a user sends from the computer into commands that the printer understands.
Various drivers must be installed on the print server to support different hardware and operating systems. For example, an administrator running Windows 2000 Server who shares a printer with clients running Windows 95 and Windows 98 might want to install the appropriate drivers so the users won't be prompted to install the missing drivers. The printer driver sends the printer-setting information, including the specifications needed to produce each character of the document, to the GDI. It also transmits helper services or utilities required to make the output print correctly. Windows 2000 provides three generic printer drivers: Universal (Unidriver), PostScript and HP-GL/2 plotter.
Universal Printer Driver (Unidriver) The Unidriver is also called the raster driver because it supports raster graphics printing and is compatible with most types of printers. Each printer vendor provides a device-specific data file.
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This driver supports color printing at various depths (4 bits per pixel (bpp), 8 bpp, 24 bpp), scalable TrueType and OpenType fonts, device fonts (including double-byte), grayscale printing, font substitution, run length encoding (RLE), Tag Image File Format (TIFF) version 4.0, and Delta Row Compression (DRC). It also has an extension interface that allows printer manufacturers to customize the driver for specific models. The Unidriver contains the following component files:.
Unidrv.dll is the printer graphics driver file for printer languages based on raster (bitmap) images, including Printer Control Language (PCL), and most inkjet and dot-matrix printer languages. Unidrvui.dll is the configuration file. It displays the user interface for Unidrv.dll. Raster minidriver (x.gpd) is the data file, also called characterization file. The file name depends on the printer or printer family. For more information, see the documentation included with your printer.
PostScript Printer Driver The Windows 2000 PostScript driver uses Adobe version 4.3–compatible PostScript printer description (PPD) files. This driver automatically supports key features, including binary transfer compression, resolution, and paper source, for printers reporting as PostScript levels 1, 2, and 3. Its output is device independent because it is fully compliant with Document Structuring Convention (DSC) 3.0.
This driver contains the following component files:. Pscript5.dll is the driver file.
Ps5ui.dll is the configuration file. It displays the user interface for the driver file, reports device capabilities to applications, and handles DevMode settings. Ps5ui.dll also allows you to enable TrueType and OpenType font substitution and image color matching, and to determine whether color matching needs to be done on the host or on the printer.
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X.ppd is the data file, also called the characterization file. PPD files are the only printer driver files that are generally binary-compatible across processors and platforms. HP-GL/2 Plotter Driver The Windows 2000 plotter driver supports diverse plotters that use the HP-GL/2 language but does not support HP-GL. This driver's output requires a plotting device that can process all of the enhancements built into the HP-GL/2 language. This driver contains the following component files:. Plotter.dll is the driver file. Plotui.dll is the configuration file.
It displays the user interface for Plotter.dll. X.pcd is the data file. If Microsoft does not supply a driver for your printer. Ask the device manufacturer for compatibility settings. To ensure quality, use drivers that have passed Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) tests.
Microsoft Product Support Services does not support systems with unapproved drivers. For information, see the WHQL link on the Web Resources page. You can also e-mail to suggest support for a driver or feature. Please include the following information in your request: requester's name, business name, requester's contact information (phone number or e-mail address), printer manufacturer, printer model, and nature of request (feature request or driver request).
This does not guarantee that Microsoft will write a driver for your printer.
Comes with a host of handy command-line utilities that actually pack a lot of power. Recently a friend of mine, who has been supporting Windows XP machines for the better part of his career and is getting ready to make the move to, asked me if Windows 7 still came with the VBScript print utilities that were first introduced with Windows XP. Fortunately for my friend, Windows 7 does, indeed, still come with those print utilities.
However, because they are buried away in the bowels of the operating system, they are not easy to find if you don't know that they exist. In this edition of the, I'll introduce you to these VBScript print utilities and explain why they're an important addition to the Windows 7 operating system.
As I do, I'll take a look at some example situations where these scripts can come in handy. Why use scripts?
The first thing that probably came to mind when you read the introduction is 'Why would you need to resort to script-based print utilities in Windows 7? Can't you perform all print tasks from Windows 7's GUI-based printer tools?' Well, there are several reasons why Microsoft has continued to provide these VBScript print utilities in Windows 7.
The answer to the second question is easy: 'Yes, you can perform all printing tasks with GUI-based printer tools.' The answer to the first question is twofold: First, these scripts really showcase some of the powerful features provided by Windows Script Host and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Second, the scripts offer convenience and power in that they are easy to use, are customizable via command-line parameters, and can provide quick and direct access to very specific printing tasks. For example, suppose you have a printer that is used so heavily that it frequently needs to have its ink cartridges replaced. Rather than shutting down the printer and alerting everyone that you'll be replacing the ink cartridges, you could create and run a customized script that temporarily puts the printer in offline mode, during which users could still send print jobs to the print queue. When you're done replacing the ink cartridges, you could run another customized script that puts the printer back online, at which time, printing will continue as though there was never an interruption. Running the printer utilities.
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Tips for better search results. Ensure correct spelling and spacing - Examples: 'paper jam'. Use product model name: - Examples: laserjet pro p1102, DeskJet 2130.
For HP products, enter a serial number or product number. Examples: HU265BM18V, LG534UA.
For Samsung Print products, enter the M/C or Model Code found on the product label. Examples: “SL-M2020W/XAA”. Include keywords along with product name. Examples: 'LaserJet Pro P1102 paper jam', 'EliteBook 840 G3 bios update' Need help finding your product name, number or serial number?
Hello I've to write a virtual printer driver for windows 7 64bits, and i'm a beginner in driver development. This driver will send all the data received from the soft (word, notepad.), into a socket (a TCP server will process data later), nothing more, no rendering, no user interface.
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But i didn't found great docs or samples, which simply explains what is needed to write a printer driver. Samples of WinDDK (tty, oemui) are too much complex, and i don't understand half of source code. Could you help me?
Thanks PS: sorry for my English level:) @JackDingler: thanks for answer, i didn't specify that i'm a student, so i can't pay someone:) This driver is my work placement's topic. I managed to simplify to source code, i understand better now @Code-o-mat: That's what i'm doing, i try to rewrite the tty (generic text only) sample of WinDDK. Now i know, print driver must be learned by studying samples, because there is no docs or tutorials about it. Thx EDIT: In fact I found that it was possible to write printer drivers with the Windows UniDrv.dll.
Do you think that it is possible to simply catch the output stream before any rendering, and simply transfer it to a server? I guess you would need to write a 'Rendering Plug-In', (see here: ) which doesn't render but instead streams information through a socket. By the way, if you want to react on someone's comment, use the 'reply' link that appears in the top-right corner of the comments, if you want to react on a solution, click on the 'Have a question or comment' link at the bottom-left part of the solution's box. This will send a notification to the person who wrote the comment/solution, otherwise they might not notice that you are 'talking to them' by improving your own question. Figuring out APIs and how to do things on the fly, based on limited samples is a common practice in the professional world.
Documentation is often wrong, out of date or just incomplete. Even when the documentation is good, there's no guarantee that your implementation won't expose bugs, that will have you spending time to troubleshoot and work around. The TTY sample is a great place to start. And it's all documented on the Microsoft Site. But at this level, much of their documentation assumes that you already understand how to write drivers. When answering a question please:.
Read the question carefully. Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar. If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome. Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.
Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.
What you need is not a printer driver. One named it Print Monitor. It is a DLL, which will be loaded in Spooler.exe process. The DLL gives Spooler at the initialisation phase a logical names of ports like LPT1:, FILE:, SPSPort: etc. The optput prepared with a printer driver must be send in any way to a destination device.
This work does print monitors like 'Standard TCP/IP Port' or 'Local Port'. To write printer monitor you need download and install Windows Driver Kit (WDK or some time ago DDK see ). More information about writing printer monitor see.
Print Monitor is a DLL with some exported function (see ). I recomment you to start with modifying of Local Monitor example LocalMon which full source sode you find after installing of WDK (see ). The most practical problem with writing of printer monitor is requirement of writing a real multithreaded DLL. You must be very carefull, understand and use EnterCriticalSection in all you functions. For debugging of printer monitor you should connect Visual Studio Debugger to the process Spooler. The rest is the same as writing of a standard windows Win32/Win64 DLL running. UPDATED: One more small remark.
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If you don't want that the printer driver do anything with the data sent to the printer you can use generic printer driver. You will find it under 'Generic' manufacture, printer with the name 'Generic / Text Only'. Examine some driver settings which you has (like CR LF settings).
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