[plug] printers (yet again)

[Bernd Felsche]

Kev <kdownes at tpg.com.au> writes:
>Bernd Felsche wrote:

>> The PPD specifies the non-generic printer capabilities. A PPD is
>> really only useful with a Postscript printer.
>> 
>> Although there might be some "cheating" possible with Windows (or
>> other systems) doing the rasterisation and just dumping bitmaps to
>> the printer, the multi-platform support indicates that Postscript is
>> internal to the printer.

>Please forgive me, but I'm still not sure of what you're saying.  Does 
>the above mean that the particular printer IS most likely a "real" 
>postscript printer. and therefore most likely to be OK with Linux?  I 
>gathered from your 1st sentence that it's NOT a "real" postscript 
>printer, but then it appears to me that in the 2nd sentence you're 
>saying it is.

A real Postscript printer will come with a PPD to tell the operating
system which features are available on the printer.

Without the PPD, the operating system (print subsystem) can only use
an inbuilt "generic" PPD which means that you won't be able to
exploit anything "invented" in the past 10 or 20 years. :-)

I hope that illuminates.
-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
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