Host Based HP-PCL 5 Printing

[Kenneth Brody]

On 4/18/2012 1:23 PM, smittyusn1 at bellsouth.net wrote:
> I guess what I was trying to say is,  for the first time (that I know of)
> Windows is using a Universal  PCL 5 driver instead of it being built into
> the Printer.   That is  NEW behavior is it not ?
[...]

My understanding is that HP's "universal PCL driver" is "universal" because 
the printers that it can talk to have PCL built in.  There have been 
"universal" drivers for many years.

As far as I can tell, the specs say that the P1606dn has PCL5e built-in, 
which is why it is compatible with filePro.  And filePro should have been 
able to print to it w/o installing the PCL driver.  (Unless the default 
driver refuses to handle raw data.)

As I said, "host based PCL" is an oxymoron to me.  The closest thing would 
be a PCL-to-foo translator, but since no Windows printer driver that I know 
of takes anything other than GDI input (or will pass the raw data stream to 
the printer), there would be little to no reason* for someone to write such 
a thing.


* - Note that I said "printer driver", which is a totally separate animal 
than programs such as GhostScript or PrintWizard.

-- 
Kenneth Brody