Printer Driver Settings

Settings for individual printer drivers are stored in subkeys of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Printers\ registry key. The registry key for a printer driver should define four keys: Driver, High Quality, Draft Quality, and Color. The Driver value names the DLL that contains the printer driver. The High Quality and Draft Quality values store the resolution of high-quality and draft-quality modes, if the printer supports them. Not all printers support a draft-quality mode, so the Draft Quality key may be omitted. The High Quality key must always be present, and it corresponds to the highest-quality mode of the printer. The Color value defines whether a printer can print in color or only in monochrome. If color is supported, this key must be set to the literal string “COLOR” so that the common print dialog box enables color printing for applications.

The following example shows settings for the PCL laser printer driver and the PCL Inkjet printer driver.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Printers\PCL Laser]
  "Driver"="pcl.DLL"
  "High Quality"="300"
  "Draft Quality"="150”
  "Color"="Monochrome"
  "Version"="0x200"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Printers\PCL Inkjet]
    "Driver"="pcl.dll"
    "High Quality"="300"
    "Draft Quality"="150"
    "Color"="Monochrome"

In addition, the Version key can be used to support printer drivers that serve multiple printers.