1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
|
<printer id="printer/Generic-GDI_Printer">
<make>Generic</make>
<model>GDI Printer</model>
<mechanism>
<color />
</mechanism>
<lang>
<proprietary />
</lang>
<functionality>F</functionality>
<comments>
<en>
There are many so-called "GDI" printers, especially
designed for Microsoft Windows. To save expenses for printer
electronics the manufacturers move over all the rendering to the
Windows driver running on the PC. The printer gets a simple bitmap
of the page. It does not know anything about how text characters
look like or how dithering or color adjustment works. Therefore
these printers are also called "host-based"
printers.<p>
"GDI" means "Graphical Device Interface" and
is a software API created by Microsoft through which applications
communicate with the drivers of graphical output devices, as
printers or graphics cards. "GDI" is not a hardware
protocol, the hardware protocols of GDI printers can be completely
different, even between models of the same manufacturer. For
Windows users this is no problem, as every printer comes with a
driver CD containing a driver exactly for the particular
printer.<p>
For users of operating systems not supported by the printer's
manufacturer, as GNU/Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, ..., these printers
are a big problem. The manufacturers usually keep the protocols as
their trade secrets and so it is not easy to write drivers to use
these printers under additional operating systems. See especially
Rildo Pragana's <a
href="http://www.pragana.net/gdiprinters.html">article
about the development of a driver for the Samsung
ML-85G</a>. You should also read this article when you want
to write a driver (we need especially drivers for the Canon LBP
winprinters and the Epson EPL-....L series).<p>
If you have a GDI laser printer and this database does not point
you to any drivers for it, try especially the "foo2zjs"
driver for Zenographics' ZJ-stream format which probably also
works with some Minolta, QMS, and other printers or also
Samsung's "gdi" driver which is known to work on
several Samsung and one Lexmark laser printer. Brothers GDI models
most probably work with the "hl7x0" driver which is
already part of Ghostscript for a longer time.<p>
Compaq inkjets are usually relabled Lexmarks, so try the drivers
for Lexmark models with the same maximum resolution, also the
drivers issued by Lexmark could work. There are also Xerox
printers which are relabled Lexmark inkjets, but other Xerox
models are identical to Sharp's inkjets and understand PCL 3
(so they work with the "pcl3" driver and are not GDI
printers).<p>
All what is written here is not proven knowledge and so do not buy
a GDI printer because we have written here that it
"probably" or "perhaps" works. This entry you
should more understand as a guide for people already having a
winprinter and searching for a driver.<p><p>
Consumables/Refills: <p>
</en>
</comments>
</printer>
|
