Any computer that is connected to a printer is usually assisted by a printer device driver, but what is this, and how does it help? A device driver may also be called a software driver, and this is simply a computer program which allows a device to communicate and interact with the higher level programs on the computer. The programming is made much simpler because the device driver acts as a translator, allowing the device and the operating system or applications communicate back and forth.
Most operating systems and computer applications have programming that is written in a code which is a higher level than the device program, and this can cause communication malfunctions between the two, just like two people speaking separate languages trying to communicate. Instead of a languauge translator, the device uses a device driver. Each individual device requires specialized commands which are unique to that device type, and printers are no exception. A printer device driver is needed for the computer to tell the printer to print, and which specific files to print.
Printer Drivers - The Bridge Between Your PC and Printer
A printer driver may also go by the term print processor, and this may be mistaken for the print spooler, but these are two separate things. The printer driver is software that converts the print data into a form that can be read by the specific printer. Without the printer device driver, any applications that needed to print would would have to know the technical details for each printer model, making it very expensive, and confusing, to have a printer working together with your computer. The print spooler is the program which assigns a queue the printing jobs needed and determine the order, then gives instructions to start the next print job in the queue when the previous printing is done.
Without a printer device driver, your printer would be useless because there would be no communication between the printer and the computer, so your printer would not know what to do. Because the printer requires commands which are specialized, the programming is not the same as the programming on your computer. When an application needs to access the device, your printer in this case, this is done by using the high level commands that are generic. Device drivers are dependent on the hardware, and the driver gives commands to the device after a calling program starts a routine in the printer device driver.
PRINTLN is one high level generic command that is used by printer device drivers. The printer device driver receives these generic commands and then translates the commands to the low level commands that the device requires to function correctly. Usually the printer device driver communicates with the computer using a communications subsystem or the computer bus. Each device driver is operating system specific, which means a Windows printer device driver will not work on a Mac computer, and a Linux device driver will not work on a Windows operating system.
