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List Info Thread: Re: PCL or PostScript
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Re: PCL or PostScript |
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List Info Thread: Re: PCL or PostScript
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rollanet.org>
On 10/02/2007 at 18:21 you wrote concerning
Re: [PageStreamSupport] PCL or PostScript
Hello Tim,
TD>>> ...PCL is the rival of PostScript (according
to Wikipedia), so not
TD>>> interchangeable.
TD> [snip]
TD>> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but PCL is a
Hewlett/Packard protocol
TD>> used within their printers but popular enough to
be included as an
TD>> option in other brands as well. As far as I know,
it's never been
TD>> promoted as an independent tool for formatting
documents. With
TD> While basically true and admitting I'm not expert on
PCL my recollection is
TD> that it is a full page description language.
Well, I''m not an expert either, but I challenge the claim
above. Not sure about
PCL 6, as I do not have the manual for it, but with respect
to HP PCL 5, the HP
manual reads:
"
PCL Printer Language History
Hewlett-Packard created the PCL printer language (simply
referred to as "PCL"
elsewhere in this manual) to provide an economical and
efficient way for
application programs to control a range of printer features
across a number of
printing devices.
<<skip some advertizing stuff>>
PCL printer language commonality from HP printer to HP
printer helps to minimize
printer support problems and protect HP printer customer
investment in
applications and printer driver software.
"
I fail to see where any of the above corresponds to "a
full page description
language."
TD> The lack of tools for manipulating PCL isn't really
an indicator of how
limited
TD> PCL as a language is.
It is not limiting if one stays within the family of HP
printers or printers
that understand the PCL codes.
TD> On the other hand PostScript actually includes
programming constructs. I'm
TD> not sure that PCL does (again, I'm not an expert on
PCL). This is part of
TD> what makes creating a PostScript interpreter, much
less editor, so
TD> troublesome.
PostScript is a programming language period.
TD>> PostScript you have an intermediate file which
you can open in an editor
TD>> and see that it's a page description language
which can be modified
TD>> directly—at least you might want to modify the
header information. To
TD>> the best of my knowledge, you can't do that in
PCL. PCL is always in the
TD>> printer directly or by emulation and there's no
intermediate file to
TD> Theoretically PCL is very like PostScript when it
comes to driving printers.
You've covered yourself with that opening
"theoretically" but the rest of the
sentence is nonsense. PostScript is not concerned with
"driving printers". The
primary responsibility of PCL is "to drive
printers" particlarly PCL endowed
printers. PostScript does not even assume that output is to
be sent to a
printer; output maybe to a file, to a display device, etc.
PostScript is not at
all concerned about how one 'drives' a particular printer;
PCL is concerned
about such details.
<<snip>>
TD> Although PCL does support this unfortunately HP seems
to have been more
TD> interested in creating slightly different and
incompatible versions (see the
TD> proliferation of PCL 6 versions).
I was not aware that there are "different and
incompatible" versions of PCL 6.
Have paid little attention to PCL 6.
<<snip>>
TD> Fast forward to the present and PCL is, from a
practical perspective, the
TD> same as escp (I think that's the right abbreviation
for Epson's printer
TD> language -- which is to my knowledge strictly a
printer "language", not a
TD> page description language).
You realize that the above contradicsts what you wrote
earlier about PCL being
"a full page description language." I know -- you
escape with the "from a
practical perspective" clause. 
Cheers Don (Green Dragon)
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