So PPD files do not really fit in the picture anymore, and they also had their shortcomings, especially being rather unflexible in the possible types of user-settable options. Nowadays applications send jobs in PDF and CUPS does the PDF-centric processing, already for 8 years, since the first release of cups-filters back in 2012. CUPS provides reserved directories to drop these PPD files and filters into, so adding a printer driver was rather easy. Since both PostScript and raster printers could then use PPD files, Michael Sweet adopted PPD as a common printer description format, which also got used for his company’s ESP Print Pro (GUI) software and then later macOS and GNOME/KDE. CUPS raster drivers used PPD files because it used Ghostscript or (on IRIX) Impressario (a version of Adobe’s PostScript interpreter) to produce raster data for printing, and they could use embedded PostScript commands to control page size, colour space, etc. The system supports printers, the user uses printers.ĬUPS made the move from built-in printer drivers in Ghostscript to CUPS filters, with the help of the CUPS Raster device-independent print raster format. It allowed users to use all PostScript printers directly. Applications sent jobs in PostScript which could be understood by PostScript printers. This format was adopted because in that time printing under Linux and Unix worked via PostScript. PPD files describe the printer’s capabilities and which filters to use to produce the data format needed by the printer. PPD (PostScript Printer Description) is a decades-old data format created by Adobe, probably together with PostScript or shortly after, to describe capabilities and user-settable options of PostScript printers and which PostScript commands to embed in the print job to execute the option settings. Since then, Printer Drivers consisted of PPD files and CUPS filters. The first release of CUPS was back in 1997. What were the issues with the previous methodologies? How Printer Applications helped in solving them? Why it has been referred to as the “Technology for Future”? In the end, it also contains roles of different entities including OpenPrinting, Manufacturers, and the User. The following document contains information about the history of printing and its evolution. Printer Applications - A new way to print in LinuxĮver wondered how a Printer works? What are the different steps involved between the print command and the final output?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2022
Categories |