develop a printer driver for Mac OS 8/9/X

[angusdream]

Hi all,

I'm going to study the Mac printer driver development. But I don't have any Mac programming experiences. So that I want to get some advices.

If anyone have this experience, please give me some hints and information. Thanks in advance! :)

Angus

[bodine]

One question comes to my mind: Why do you want to develop a printer driver? And, for what kind of printer? (OK, so that was 2 questions.)

[john316]

Did you try here?

Sample Driver Code [developer.apple.com]

[angusdream]

Because I want to know the possibility of a new Mac programmer to develop Mac printer driver. It is related to my work~~
The printer driver will target to laser printer. I didn't try that source.
I found that it is hard to find material about printing technology of Mac OS 8/9 on internet.

[bodine]

The reason you may be having a hard time finding info is because the Mac OS already includes drivers that will work with most current printers. Some of the advanced features of the printer (like toner status) will not be available, but you can print to it using the generic PostScript driver built in to the Mac OS. This is why I asked the questions I asked...if you want to give more details, I will be happy to tell you all I know...

[angusdream]

Thanks bodine!

The target printer supports some features which are not PostScript. That's why people demands this kind of driver.
Is it possible to develop a Mac printer driver supports PCL?

[bodine]

Have you looked at PowerPrint from Strydent Software?

[strydent.com...]

<added>If the mods come and take the link away, I will StickyMail it to you</added>

[angusdream]

That's great. They can convert print data to PCL printer. That means it is possible to develop a Mac printer driver to supports PCL conversion instead of PS. Am I right?