UPD> Article in InfoWorld on "universal print driver" (InfoWorld) (htt p://www.infoworld

[Hastings, Tom N]

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Group forms to develop universal print driver 

By Ephraim Schwartz 
InfoWorld Electric 




Posted at 5:49 AM PT, Oct 24, 1998 
Working quietly, an informal group of the leading printer manufacturers is
working to create a single universal print driver that will replace the more
than 3,000 drivers that are currently required. 


The goal is to have only one driver included in the operating system, or a
Universal Printer Driver Format (UPDF), with the individual characteristics
of a particular printer described in a text file residing within the printer
itself. 


"We are hoping the [bidirectional] characteristics of the UPDF will help IT
managers, in that less support of printers is needed," said Sandra Matts,
chair of the UPDF committee in the Printer Working Group (PWG) and an
engineer scientist for Workgroup Color LaserJets at Hewlett-Packard, in
Boise, Idaho. "They won't have to configure every client's computer for each
printer the client will use." 


Commands would reside in the text file within the printer to invoke the
printer's capabilities. If a user wanted to do duplex printing, for example,
the text file would send the correct data stream. 


On the operating system side, the driver is universal. It is on the client
side that unique features are described. 


"There is no such thing as a device-independent data stream," said Harry
Lewis, a member of the PWG and a printing systems architect at IBM Printing
Systems Division, in Boulder, Colo. 


Every device may have different characteristics that can change. 


A so-called meta-language developed by the PWG would be able to describe all
of the features of the printer for access by the single driver in the OS. 


"Basically, it is similar to PostScript page description language," said Dan
Wright, another PWG member and the product manager for alliances for
standards at Lexmark, in Lexington, Ky. 


According to group members, the finished driver will be available for
testing in eight months to one year, with another two months needed for
interoperability testing before it ships. 


The universal driver will require the support of operating system vendors,
such as Microsoft, as well as Unix operating system vendors. Currently,
Microsoft ships a CD with more than 3,000 printer drivers with each package
of Windows NT. 


Microsoft support appears to be in place, according to Paul Moore, program
manager for Windows NT 5.0 printing. 


The Redmond, Wash., software company currently has Unidrive 5 in Beta 2 of
NT 5.0, which is similar to technology that might be used as the basis for
the UPDF, according to Moore. 


Moore believes the UPDF will benefit IT departments. 


"We think that a lot of IT manager problems arise from having too many
printer drivers. The benefits [of a universal driver] would be all around,"
Moore said. "It will reduce the administrative load." 


The single driver as envisioned by members of the PWG allow a UPDF to query
the printer device for capabilities. 


"Today, we really rely on the user selecting in the UI features of the
printer," Matts said. "It's really a best guess at times. UPDF will allow
our drivers to truly know what is attached to the printer at the start of
the print job." 


The Printer Working Group can be reached at www.pwg.org <http://www.pwg.org>
. 


Ephraim  <mailto:ephraim_schwartz at infoworld.com> Schwartz is an editor at
large for InfoWorld. 





	
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