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For the computer system, a printer driver is software that converts data to be printed to a form that is understandable specifically to printer hardware. The point of the printer driver is to provide a way for applications (Word, Excel, whatever) to do the printing without the application having to be coded for the technical details of every printer model on the market. Many printers have also been supplied with drivers for the most popular applications.
There are many processes going on when you send a document to the printer to be printed. In order to use the same APIs (Application Programming Interface: an interface implemented by a software program which enables it to interact with other software) to draw text and pictures on screen and on paper, MS Windows systems printer drivers implement GDI (Unidrv or PScript-based) or XPS (XPSDrv). Distilled down, the basics on printer technologies are these:
- The GDI is the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) and is a MS Windows application programming interface (API) and core operating system component responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers. GDI is responsible for tasks such as drawing lines and curves, rendering fonts and handling palettes. Using GDI, it is very easy to draw on multiple devices, such as a screen and a printer, and expect proper reproduction in each case. This capability is at the center of all What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) applications for Microsoft Windows. In Windows 7, for instance, it includes GDI hardware acceleration for blitting operations (a computer graphics operation in which several bitmaps are combined into one). This improves GDI performance using new features in the Windows Display Driver Model v1.1. This allows this DWM engine to use local video memory for compositing, thereby reducing system memory footprint and increasing the performance of graphics operations.
- In 2003 Global Graphics was chosen by Microsoft to provide consultancy and proof of concept development services on XPS and worked with the Windows development teams on the specification and reference architecture for the new format. Like Adobe Systems's PDF format, XPS is a fixed-layout document format designed to preserve document fidelity, providing device-independent documents appearance. XPS specifies a set of document layout functionality for paged, printable documents. It also has support for features such as color gradients, transparencies, CMYK color spaces, printer calibration, multiple-ink systems and print schemas. The XPS format used in the spool file represents advanced graphics effects such as 3D images, glow effects, and gradients as Windows Presentation Foundation primitives, which are processed by the printer drivers without rasterization, preventing rendering artifacts and reducing computational load.
Printer drivers are written operating system-specific, and instruction set architecture-specific (32-bit, 64-bit processors). Most of the time, printer drivers install and perform perfectly. Sometimes, they do not. Printer drivers can be fussy about how they are installed depending upon manufacturer, as well as the operating systems can be fussy about them being installed in them. Most of the printer manufacturers have a printer support website.
In this article, a basic local install on an MS Windows system using an MS-approved standard printer driver (not a specialty driver like a Fax driver, MS Office Document Imaging driver, Acrobat, or similar), and tips to avoid a problem install will be covered. The local install means that the printer driver resides on the computer and not on a network, though it is possible to "connect" a local installed driver to a network printer. Installing the printer driver is a Windows function, but the most important thing to remember is to install the printer driver software from the manufacturer specific to the printer device - usually supplied through the associated printer driver CD/DVD, and not out of the archive of the operating system.
If you have any printer driver issues and don't know how to go about getting them resolved, or are unsure as to how to go about installing your printer driver, please call us. We would be happy to help get your printer driver installed and printer printing for you.
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