Printer Drivers And Print Options; What A Printer Driver Does - Canon ColorPASS-Z5000 Color Manual

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1-14 ColorPASS Color Management

Printer Drivers and Print Options

This section describes the role of the printer driver and explains how to use Windows
and Mac OS printer drivers for ColorPASS printing.
The term "PostScript" by itself is used to refer to Adobe PostScript Level 2
N :
OTE
or later.

What a printer driver does

To take full advantage of the features of the ColorPASS, your print jobs must be sent as
PostScript data. Since most applications cannot generate PostScript data directly, it is
the function of a printer driver to interpret instructions from the application and
convert them to PostScript data.
A PostScript printer driver also allows you to select print options specific to your
copier. To do this, the printer driver must be matched with a PostScript printer
description file (PPD) for your ColorPASS. The PPD contains information about the
particular features supported by the ColorPASS and the copier. The PPD can be
thought of as the lines of PostScript code in the file that are device-specific. When you
print a job, the printer driver lets you choose among features by displaying print
options.
A few PostScript applications can send PostScript data directly to the copier and
present print options within the application interface. Even these applications,
however, require that you use a PostScript printer driver.
Your ColorPASS user software includes Adobe PostScript printer drivers for
Windows 95/98/Me, Windows NT 4.0, and Mac OS and the Microsoft PostScript
printer driver for Windows 2000. These are the recommended printer drivers for
printing to the ColorPASS. (See Getting Started for information on installing printer
drivers.)
It is recommended that you set the print options initially in ColorPASS Setup (see the
Configuration Guide). This provides you with a default configuration that is
appropriate for most ColorPASS print jobs.