Re: advice: writing a printer driver

From: Grant Taylor (gtaylor+colhard_ieeec112503_at_picante.com)
Date: 11/25/03 

Date: 25 Nov 2003 13:39:54 -0500

juliagoolia301@hotmail.com (Julia Goolia) writes:

> i would like your advice on writing a printer driver for linux for a
> very specialized vector graphics printer i am building. does anyone
> have any info regarding postscript driver source code? i would like
> to be able to suppose eps or svg. is it feasible to alter the
> postscript or svg driver source to do what i want on my device?

The Ghostscript internal driver API can theoretically support vector
devices. If you want PostScript support, that's probably what you
would do. SVG should be generally transformable into PostScript.

Alternatively, you could do it the other way: make a program to take
svg and drive your printer, then make an SVG-output Ghostscript
driver. This has the side benefit of providing a facility somebody
else might use in the future, although it's perhaps less "integrated".

In practice, there are very few drivers like this out there; most
printers are bitmap devices, or are treated as such for programming
simplicity. 

-- 
Grant Taylor - gtaylor<at>picante.com - http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/
 Linux Printing Website and HOWTO:  http://www.linuxprinting.org/

Relevant Pages

  • Re: "Access Denied"
    ... uses the Generic Text/Only driver. ... allowing spooling on every printer on that port. ... Are you taking a PostScript ... If you *want* your output to bypass the driver, and language monitor, use ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax)
  • Re: "Access Denied"
    ... That's interetsing, I have never had a problem calling StartDocPrinter(), ... uses the Generic Text/Only driver. ... Are you taking a PostScript ... If you *want* your output to bypass the driver, and language monitor, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax)
  • Re: Why are printers such a hassle?
    ... LD>>BC> Why is it that every printer comes with a CD-Rom containing it's driver? ... LD>>There is a standard: PostScript. ... LD> is send it a full-page raster bitmap and say "print this". ... LD> any decent graphics model will take that in its stride). ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • Re: Printing Prob with PoScript2
    ... Either the generated PostScript file is ... there is no other driver that has been built for the HP ... 2550 on RISC OS. ... prints OK from the Mac; it does not print OK from the Iyonix. ...
    (comp.sys.acorn.misc)
  • Color laser printers and the IIgs...some Musings
    ... Recently I purchased a HP Color Laserjet 3700dn printer, keeping in mind that it would only print in black and white on my Apple IIgs using the built in Laserwriter driver. ... It seems that it would be fairly trivial to add support for color to the driver and a few other modern features due to the simplicity and independent nature of the Postscript language. ...
    (comp.sys.apple2)