Printing drivers architecture

Hi

I've read the information in the DDK about the printing architecture
and I have several questions:

1. Is there a better documentation about the printing architecture then
the MSDN?

2. Why some printers print in raw and some in EMF? How this decision is
being taken after an application is issuing a "Print" command?
Is there a way to always produce an EMF file instead of RAW, regardless
the printer being used?

3. My goal is eventually to get an EMF file from each print request,
analyze it and block / deny the printing. So, Where in the "chain"
is the best place to enter to do such a thing?

Thanks

Igoogle
Mon May 15 10:12:04 CDT 2006

to 3 : print processor can gather the print file and convert to EMF
file .

zedy1984
Mon May 15 17:12:25 CDT 2006

If i understand right, print processor should be used to convert EMF to
RAW, isn't it ?
(i'm new to printer drivers, can you please explain in more detailes
what i should do?)

Thanks

Igoogle
Mon May 15 21:29:44 CDT 2006

No , RAW and EMF is two different type format of print processor .

SPL contains EMF data , if you want get emf ,just need get spl and
extract emf from it

Christoph
Tue May 16 04:01:48 CDT 2006

"Igoogle" <tfpunix@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1147746584.492000.155080@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> No , RAW and EMF is two different type format of print processor .
>
> SPL contains EMF data , if you want get emf ,just need get spl and
> extract emf from it
>

This is not correct. SPL files can hold all sorts of different formats: NT
EMF (a special EMF based spool format), TEXT and RAW. Where RAW stands for
the "raw" job data which is sent to the printer. RAW could be PCL,
PostScript, ESC/P or similar.

You can not just depend on the SPL files to include EMF, this depend on
several factors.

The print processor converts from one format to the next, ending in RAW. And
the data is spooled in the SPL files between stages.
The print processor uses (normally) functions provided by the spooler to
convert from one format to the other.

--
Christoph Lindemann
Undocumented Printing
http://undocprint.printassociates.com/

Igoogle
Tue May 16 04:16:03 CDT 2006

Sorry . I have not wrote clearly ,Yes, the EMF format should be
definate on the option of printer processor .

You are right .

Maxim
Tue May 16 07:19:47 CDT 2006

> This is not correct. SPL files can hold all sorts of different formats: NT
> EMF (a special EMF based spool format), TEXT and RAW. Where RAW
>stands for
> the "raw" job data which is sent to the printer. RAW could be PCL,
> PostScript, ESC/P or similar.

There is also "pscript" SPL format, used in Services For Macintosh. Macintoshes
can only print PostScript, it is known. So, Windows's SFM supported accepting
PostScript from the Mac clients and printing it on any GDI printer.

I think the capability was limited though - black-and-white or such.

Also note that EMF format is not only undocumented, it _really changes a lot_,
and now we have around version 11 of it :-) I don't think that the job of EMF
parsing can be done reliably.

Too bad that Windows uses this issue-rich intermediate language in their print
spooler instead of good old PostScript (which UNIX's CUPS uses).

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
maxim@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com