While the comments below are mostly accurate, I offer some fine-point
clarifications.
On Wed, 4 Jun 2008, Robin Smith wrote:
>
> I agree with Jerry that it seems strange that HP would do this as they
> have their own *nix but Left Hand and Right Hand springs to mind!!
HP still seems to be producing printers that can handle PCL5 (and PCL6 and
PostScript). These tend not to be their multi-function printers (MFPs),
and not their lowest-cost units. I recently purchased a Color Laserjet
CP3505, which can accept all three of these languages plus PDF!
> The problem is more fundamental as I see it. HP "in their infinite
> wisdom" have dropped PCL5 in favour of PCL6. This is fine if you are on
> Windows using the correct Windows printer drivers. However, if you live
> in the real world like a lot of us in the U2 arena and work on a flavour
> of Unix (AIX, HP, Linux etc) then we don't have Windows printer drivers.
First, note that PCL6 is completely different from PCL5; it is not a
newer, upgradeable version. And as I stated, many PCL6 printers also
support PCL5.
> Also, if you use PCL5 escape sequences to format yur printing - this is
> how SB+ printing works - PCL6 doesn't understand the sequences. We have
> found that some HP printers that use PCL6 emulation "claim" to be
> backwards compatible to PCL5. BEWARE - this is often a very reduced
> version of PCL5 with only one or two fonts/typefaces supported and a
> reduced set of escape sequences.
>
> Also, if you use PCL5 sequences in the MS Windows environment (again SB+
> does this) then the Windows PCL6 drivers don't recognise them.
Actually, neither PCL5 NOR PCL6 drivers recognize PCL. If you run a
program that outputs using the Windows printing interface (we call this
high-level printing), as Notepad does for instance, a PCL5 driver will
convert that to PCL5, and a PCL6 driver will convert that to PCL6; then
the printer will interpret those codes.
If you run something that internally generates PCL5, such as SB+, then it
can't do that high-level printing, or the PCL5 codes would get written on
the page. Instead, these programs must write at a lower level (what we
call spooler mode), which bypasses all parts of the driver except the part
that sends a stream of bytes to the printer. Think of it as one notch
above copying a file to PRN. In this approach (spooler mode), it generally
doesn't matter WHAT kind of printer driver is used. What's important is
that the printer understand what you're sending it.
(For the printer I mentioned above, I can send it the contents of a PDF
file using spooler mode, and it prints fine.)
>
> PCL6 is very similar to GDI using a graphical interface to the printers
> rather than ASCII characters that we are all used to.
That's true. Most graphics drawing commands in Windows mapdirectly to PCL6
commands.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen, President, Rasmussen Software, Inc.
Providers of Print Wizard
personal e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
company e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
fax: (US) 503-624-0760
web: http://www.anzio.com
street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc.
10240 SW Nimbus, Suite L9
Portland, OR 97223 USA
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