Chapter 4: Printer Drivers And Print Options; What A Printer Driver Does - Xerox DocuColor 40 Reference Manual

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4-1 What a printer driver does

Chapter 4:
Printer Drivers
and Print
Options
This chapter describes the role of the printer driver in your workflow and explains how
to use Mac OS and Windows printer drivers for DocuColor 40 CP printing. It
includes the following topics:
• An explanation of what a PostScript Level 2 or 3 printer driver does
• Information on the capabilities of various printer drivers
• Instructions for setting color options with the Adobe PostScript printer drivers for
Mac OS, Windows 95, and Windows 3.1x
• Instructions for setting DocuColor 40 CP print options with the Microsoft
PostScript Level 2 printer driver for Windows NT 4.0
What a printer driver does
To take full advantage of the features of the DocuColor 40 CP, your print jobs must be
sent as PostScript Level 2 (or higher) files. Most applications cannot create this
PostScript data directly. It is the function of a printer driver to interpret the
instructions generated by the application and convert them into PostScript data.
A PostScript Level 2 or 3 printer driver also allows you to select print options specific
to your print device. To do this, the printer driver must be matched with a PostScript
printer description file (PPD) for your DocuColor 40 CP. The PPD contains
information about the particular features supported by the DocuColor 40 CP and the
print device. When you print a job, the printer driver lets you choose among features
by specifying print options.
A few PostScript applications (for example, PageMaker 6.5) can send PostScript
Level 2 data directly to the print device and present print options within the
application interface. Even these applications, however, require that you use a
PostScript Level 2 or greater printer driver.