Printing
QuickDraw GX includes an extensible, device-independent printing architecture that provides a high level of support for both users and application developers, and that makes creation of printing extensions and printer drivers fast and efficient. The printing features of QuickDraw GX include the following:
To implement the basic printing capabilities of QuickDraw GX, your application need provide only a small amount of code, which executes in response to a few menu items and a single printing message. With additional developmental effort, you can provide highly customized capabilities. (Even if your application implements no QuickDraw GX printing features at all, its users receive the benefit of desktop printers.)
- A consistent application printing interface, regardless of the type of printer used.
- A message-based printing system. Drivers, extensions, and even applications need only respond to (override) a standard set of printing messages if they wish to add specific functionality.
- A set of printing objects that controls the printing process. Use of multiple objects means that, for example, different parts of a document can print on several printers simultaneously, or a single document can have multiple page formats for printing.
- Support for desktop printers, which are represented by icons on the computer desktop. The user can print a document by dragging it to the icon. Desktop printers support printer sharing, and you can control jobs in the print queue of a desktop printer.
- Customizable printing dialog boxes. In addition to standard print options, these dialog boxes also provide additional controls such as the ability to select a paper tray.
- The capability of creating and reading portable digital documents (PDDs). These documents can be viewed or printed on any computer that has QuickDraw GX installed, without requiring the original application or fonts with which the document was created. If QuickDraw GX is installed, any application--including those that are not QuickDraw GX-aware--can create a PDD.
- Fast development of printing extensions that can work with any printer driver and any application, to extend the printing capabilities available to the user.
- Fast development of printer drivers.
The application printing interface to QuickDraw GX is described in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing; the interface for printing extensions and printer drivers is described in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing Extensions and Drivers.