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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.
562:, 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.
683:
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
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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
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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.
565:
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
456:. 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
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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.
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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
403:" 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
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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
312:. 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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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,
83:
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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:
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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.
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APIs also allow applications to send data directly to the spooler, bypassing the printer driver; however, few applications actually use this option.
592:, which introduced not only recent drivers, but also featured a functioning Printer Spooler into Amiga, and featured 16 million colors printing.
308:(short for Common Unix Printing System), a modular printing system for Unix-like computer operating systems, which allows a computer to act as a
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441:, however, the SCRIPT command can be loaded to run in the background in order to intercept and convert printer output from applications into
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USB Stack. This stack is capable of detecting any USB device by its class, but printers still require a driver to be controlled.
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Beyond this, there are no system-wide printer-specific drivers for use at application level under MS-DOS/PC DOS. Under
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controlled
Postscript Printers. The printer drivers surprisingly remained almost same of Workbench 1.3, with 4096 limits.
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The printer driver is usually located on the C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository folder on a
Windows machine.
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to draw text and pictures both on screen and on paper. Printers which use GDI natively are commonly referred to as
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Through the use of the
Printer Preferences program printers could be connected to the serial port as well.
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is more standardization in packaging formats of drivers than the actual functions performed by drivers.
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associated with parallel printers supported in the system. Similarly, serial printers can be used with
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In order to support more complex printing for different models of printers, each application (e.g. a
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that states a
Knowledge editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic.
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which selects main printer and other basic elements such as "Print
Spacing" and "Paper Size".
452:) may be shipped with its own printer drivers, which were essentially descriptions of printer
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This fact led Amiga users to prefer third party Printer Systems with their own drivers, like
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printers which will work in DOS. It appears that these are also compatible with Windows 3.x.
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as well as optional support to support screen captures also in graphics mode through
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to support PS-capable printers also by applications not supporting them directly.
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Usually the operating system needs to know the characteristics of a printer. The
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switching support also for the associated printers—different types of
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on a computer that converts the data to be printed to a format that a
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of the printing system, while the printer spoolers constitute the
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uses a special version of TurboPrint to pilot recent printers.
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DOS also provides a dynamically loadable print spooler named
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personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay
824:"Which Folder Has the Printer Driver Files in Windows 7?"
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Citizen Printer Emulation Modes for Microsoft Windows 3.0
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639:Examples of manufacturer specific formats include:
407:without more than simple line-oriented formatting.
606:USB printers are automatically recognized by the
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577:controlled features like Dithering and Scaling.
19:"GRAPHICS" redirects here. For other uses, see
603:featured in the past its own printer drivers.
510:(XPSDrv). Programs then use the same standard
280:Printer drivers in different operating systems
268:Printer drivers should not be confused with
395:Users can use commands like, for example, "
60:Learn how and when to remove these messages
418:. If the optional character device driver
599:Many Amiga programs like DTP programs as
276:and send them successively to a printer.
233:Learn how and when to remove this message
215:Learn how and when to remove this message
113:Learn how and when to remove this message
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338:supports predefined character devices
494:systems, printer drivers make use of
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16:Software for connecting to a printer
765:Windows Vista printing technologies
689:PostScript Printer Description file
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41:This article has multiple issues.
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49:or discuss these issues on the
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801:list of Epson FX printer codes
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748:PostScript Printer Description
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660:Ink Jet Printer Data Stream (
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732:HP Universal Print Driver
21:graphics (disambiguation)
781:Portable Document Format
759:Printer Command Language
667:Samsung Printer Language
644:Printer Command Language
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775:XML Paper Specification
707:This format is used by
670:Ultra Fast Rendering (
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93:by rewriting it in an
743:Open-source hardware
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540:FX standard driver,
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285:Unix and Unix-like
95:encyclopedic style
82:is written like a
849:Computer printers
738:List of emulators
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103:February 2013
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147:Please help
142:verification
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43:Please help
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705:CUPS filter
590:PrintStudio
516:Winprinters
506:-based) or
420:PRINTER.SYS
838:Categories
788:References
601:PageStream
586:TurboPrint
575:PrinterGFX
480:PostScript
465:Proprinter
460:FX-80 and
443:PostScript
428:dot matrix
405:text files
292:and other
274:print jobs
175:newspapers
46:improve it
579:PrinterPS
566:Spooler.
424:code page
318:front end
294:Unix-like
247:computers
205:July 2009
52:talk page
734:(HP UPD)
716:See also
697:Foomatic
608:Poseidon
416:GRAPHICS
322:back end
259:software
646:(PCL) (
594:MorphOS
504:PScript
486:Windows
314:filters
263:printer
189:scholar
89:Please
500:Unidrv
439:DR-DOS
191:
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783:(PDF)
777:(XPS)
761:(PCL)
750:(PPD)
727:ESC/P
672:Canon
662:Kodak
655:Adobe
542:Xerox
538:Epson
531:Amiga
522:Win32
458:Epson
412:PRINT
401:LPT1:
399:file1
397:COPY
389:COM4:
383:COM3:
377:COM2:
371:COM1:
359:LPT3:
353:LPT2:
347:LPT1:
298:Linux
253:or a
196:JSTOR
182:books
722:CUPS
709:CUPS
588:and
512:APIs
430:and
386:and
365:AUX:
356:and
341:PRN:
306:CUPS
304:use
302:OS X
300:and
290:Unix
249:, a
168:news
693:PPD
508:XPS
502:or
496:GDI
490:On
476:PCL
462:IBM
336:DOS
331:DOS
245:In
151:by
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473:HP
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