Printer Device Driver Reference for OS/2

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Printer Device Driver Reference

Reprint Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation

EDM/2 preamble

This is the Printer Device Driver Reference for OS/2 as last published by IBM in 1998. It is republished here with explicit permission from the company (Copyright Permission #21953) and you should keep in mind that it is an intellectual property of International Business Machines Corp. that cannot be changed or reused without their permission and is not governed by the Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 licence like the rest of the EDM/2 Wiki.

The content of the documentation is unchanged apart from the following:

  • The original document was an INF file split into thousands of different small sections, these have been consolidated into chapters, and restructured to fit HTML formatting, mimicking the original GML format as much as possible.
  • Sales, technical help, download and contact information has been removed. The PDDR/2 and the related SDK's are no longer for sale, nor is support available from IBM. Some of the INF viewer related help has been removed as well as it is superfluous after the format change and might be misleading, and the Glossary and Notices section was merged with other DDK/SDK glossary sections as they are all identical.
  • Miniscule changes have been made to the text, spelling errors, formatting errors and possible copy and paste errors have been fixed and/or noted.

Outside of formatting changes, adding Wikilinks and graphic improvements, the document shall be left as it is. It should be noted that the some of the driver models and data formats described in the documentation are have been replaced or extended by both IBM and third parties, but that does not mean that this document should be changed, but it is acceptable that a link is created to an internal or external article that explains the newer models and formats.

About This Book

The Printer Device Driver Reference for OS/2 describes the printer and plotter presentation drivers as well as test tools that correspond to the source code that is supplied with the IBM Developer Connection Device Driver Kit for OS/2.

This reference also provides a roadmap to the drivers and briefly describes their functions and modules. It is intended to be used in conjunction with the Presentation Driver Reference. For additional information about graphics-engine functions and presentation drivers, see the Presentation Driver Reference.

Programmers can use the information found in this book to create printer drivers and tests as well as to test their drivers. Knowledge of C and Assembler programming languages is necessary. The programmer must be familiar with the OS/2 operating system, the Presentation Manager interface, and 80X86 architecture. The programming concepts that should be understood before developing applications to run on the OS/2 system can be found in the Application Design Guide.

How This Book is Organized

  • Generic Printer Library, describes a set of subroutine packages that can be used in the development of 32-bit hardcopy presentation drivers.
  • 32-Bit PostScript Driver, describes important design and programming information about the PostScript driver. All the functions used by the PostScript driver are listed and described.
  • 32-Bit Plotter Presentation Driver, describes important design and programming information about the plotter driver. All the functions used by the plotter driver are listed and described.
  • The 42XX Rasterizing Driver, provides important design and programming information about the 42XX rasterizing driver. All the functions used by the 42XX rasterizing driver are listed and described.
  • Printer Bidirectional Communications, provides important design and programming information about OS/2 bidirectional communications. All the functions used by the feature are listed and described.
Font Test is a 32-bit Presentation Manager application that allows users to browse through and print text files as well as to query presentation drivers for device, font, and hardcopy information. Font Test is very useful for testing presentation drivers. All the functions used by Font Test are listed and described, and a description of how to add a test to Font Test is included.
  • Printer Test Tool (PTT), describes the Printer Test Tool (PTT) and how to run test cases. It also contains information about PTT commands and PTT command-line options. The PTT's tests are detailed, and the GPI functions called by the tests in the PTT are listed with any necessary configuration settings.
  • Importing PostScript Printer Description files
  • The Notices contain trademark and service-mark notices and information.
  • The Glossary defines terms commonly used in the IBM Device Driver Source Kit for OS/2.

OS/2 Version Compatibility Considerations

The following table lists items discussed in this reference that have been added to OS/2 since OS/2 Warp Version 3.0 and discusses their compatibility with different versions of OS/2.

Item Added or Changed Date Item Added or Changed Compatibility of Addition or Change
Omni Drivers June 1996 OS/2 Warp Version 3.0 and higher
GenPLib Updates November 1995 OS/2 Version 2.0 Service Pack and later
PostScript Driver Updates November 1995 OS/2 Version 2.0 Service Pack and later
42xx Driver November 1995 OS/2 Version 2.0 Service Pack and later
Plotter Drivers November 1995 OS/2 Version 2.0 Service Pack and later
Bidirectional Communication November 1995 OS/2 Warp, Version 3.0 and later Earlier printer drivers should work without modification when printing to bidirectional printers; port drivers developed under DDK earlier than 3.0 should work without modification when printing to bidirectional printers, but they do not provide bidirectional communication
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