PCTech Forums

As the topic says - we've got some hp printers & I've got the option of installing PCL5e, PCL6 or postscript drivers. So far I've been using PCL & it all works fine, but what's the difference?

PostScript (PS) is a page language that translates computer language to printer languag. What it does is turns everything in your document, including the graphics, into code. This information is then interpreted, reassembled and printed. The best prints, meaning the highest graphic resolution and most error free type positions, are created when the information on the page has been created using PS fonts and PS graphics and are printed on PostScript printers.

The alternative is to use a non PS script printer driver like HP PCL, which works best with true type fonts (TTF's) and tiff images.

The difference between PS and PCL can be seen in the quality of output, as determined by matching what is on the screen to what is on the printed page. Because Type1 fonts and EPS/AI files have been created to work with each other, the output most closely matches that of the screen, and is of better quality. Because there is a wide tolerance range between Tiff and TTF types, you can sometimes get shifting and distortions when printing with PCL to a non PS printer.

Easy right? Well my suggestion is to keep using the PCL drivers until you see something that doesn't quite print correctly.

Now that's what I call a comprehensive answer Funnily enough, I had some funny placement issues using PCL & PS seems to have fixed it