Chapter 11 Printer Minidrivers and RasDD

A printer minidriver is an executable data file that the raster printer device driver (RasDD) uses to print to a raster printing device. This GPC file describes the capabilities, commands, and resident fonts of a printer or class of printers.

RasDD is the Windows NT system-supplied device driver that, with a minidriver, provides printer support for raster printing devices. RasDD uses a GDI standard bitmap, allowing GDI to handle most of the rendering. So, instead of implementing all the DrvXxx functions that GDI requires, a driver writer need only create a minidriver that provides information about the printer. This greatly simplies the task of developing a Windows NT raster printer driver.

Other reasons for using minidrivers include:

·They achieve portability across CPU types.

·They provide improvements to the minidriver and printer driver software.

·They receive updates and changes to the graphics engine.

·They obtain high quality color rendering and halftoning.

·They support 1, 4, and 8 bits-per-pixel color.

This chapter provides design guidelines for those vendors who need to develop their own raster device drivers. For those vendors who need only develop a minidriver, this chapter provides a detailed description on how to use Unitool.