What to Read(IM:XP)

Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing /: Preface - About This Book

What to Read
This book is intended for developers who are interested in providing a QuickDraw GX printing capability in their applications. You can design your application to use the QuickDraw GX application-programming interface (API) for printing, even if the application doesn't use the graphics and typographic capabilities of QuickDraw GX.
In this book, each succeeding chapter builds on the previous chapter's information. So it's important to begin by learning the QuickDraw GX printing concepts and terms that are in Chapter 1, "Introduction to Printing With QuickDraw GX." This chapter presents an overview of printing with QuickDraw GX and briefly describes the dialog boxes that QuickDraw GX provides for user interaction with the printing process.
Most applications only need to support the set of printing features that are described in Chapter 2, "Core Printing Features." You use the core printing features when printing documents using QuickDraw GX. You also use them to display the standard printing-related dialog boxes and to print documents that were originally created to print with previous versions of the Macintosh printing architecture.
However, if you want to add panels to QuickDraw GX print dialog boxes to provide special features that require additional user specification, or if you want to manipulate the objects that QuickDraw GX uses to format the pages of a document, you also need to read Chapter 3, "Page Formatting and Dialog Box Customization." For example, through QuickDraw GX, your application can allow users to specify unique formats for the individual pages of a printable document.
Features that go beyond the core set and beyond those that allow you to handle page-by-page formatting and dialog box customization are described in Chapter 4, "Advanced Printing Features." You can use these features to optimize output for the capabilities of a particular device, create a file that is application-independent, define custom paper sizes, and more.
The first two pages of this book are color plates. Plate 1 shows and example of the QuickDraw GX color separation capability. Plate 2 shows common color-transfer modes used in printing.