Technical Q&A's

GXPD 40 - PDD File Format API (1-June-96)

Q I'm writing a library routine to convert a QuickDraw GX PDD file into our own format. I need to know the PDD file format in order to do this. Is it documented anywhere?

A Apple has provided a complete API within GX to allow you to access all of the information within a PDD. These calls are described on pages 4-61 through 4-70 of the Advanced Printing Features chapter of Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing.

You should only be using these calls to access to the information within the PDD.

For example, to get to the image and paper size of a particular page, you need to get to the job within the PDD. The job will reference the paper types and format(s) (which contain the page size, orientation, etc.). As another example, to access the job, you would need to open the PDD and get the job associated to the PDD. You can open the PDD by calling GXOpenPrintFile (see the sample code on page 4-29 for additional details) and call GXGetPrintFileJob to get the job associated with the PDD. Once you have the job, you can then access the format(s) associated with the job.

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