I've just read through (in the '10 'group) yet another printer driver
thread.

Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
years, possibly over a decade. Printing, basically, is the creation of a
matrix of dots in black and colours. So surely it ought to be possible,
by now, to have come up with something all printers (other than
daisywheel/golfball ones) could be fed with and work? OK, those with
extra features, like more than black-plus-three-colours or variable spot
sizes, maybe need something different, but even those ought to be able
to work with some standard output, just not use their extra features.
Certainly, the majority of models don't _have_ such features (or in the
case of the spot size, do the conversion internally).

Same for scanners; RGB rasterisation of data, and maybe control of
resolution and scan area to speed things up/give a preview mode.

I know the usual argument - there's no incentive for manufacturers to
agree, and in fact disincentive, to ensure that working hardware keeps
going obsolete - but surely the first one to say "works straight away
with the standard driver, no need to hunt for one" will get a lot of
buyers.

Back in the days of "dot matrix" (I've always thought an odd name - all
but daisywheel/golfball use a matrix of dots), there was a de facto such
standard - EPSON; other makers, if they knew what was good for them, had
a switch inside their printer that made it behave like an EPSON, as
everything (that was in DOS days when each software! had its own printer
drivers) had an EPSON driver.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Don't play "stupid" with me... I'm better at it.

On 5/31/2021 7:43 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
> the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
> innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
> years, possibly over a decade.

I also wish there was. If a universal printer driver were possible, it
wouldn't even have to be a driver. It code could be built into Windows.

Unfortunately it's not possible because the printer manufacturers
choose to design each printer differently from all its others and all
its competitors. Why do they do that? Because they don't want anyone to
use an old printer with a new version of Windows; they want you to buy a
new printer.

--
Ken

On 5/31/2021 8:11 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
> On 5/31/2021 7:43 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>
>
>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
>> the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
>> innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
>> years, possibly over a decade.
>
>
> I also wish there was. If a universal printer driver were possible, it
> wouldn't even have to be a driver. It code could be built into Windows.
>
> Unfortunately it's not possible because the printer manufacturers
> choose to design each printer differently from all its others and all
> its competitors. Why do they do that? Because they don't want anyone to
> use an old printer with a new version of Windows; they want you to buy a
> new printer.

I have a stand-alone scanner, a Canon CanoScan N670U. Purchased in
2002, it still works quite well. However, it is connected to my wife's
Windows XP SP3 PC because its driver could not be installed on my
Windows 7 SP1 PC. If my wife's PC dies, I have a working scanner that
cannot be used.

Why do I still use Windows 7? I have applications that I use that are
no longer being updated, and I cannot find equivalent replacements.
Some had to be install in my Windows 7 using Windows XP compatibility
mode. They just will not install in Windows 8 or later.

Early this year, a leak in my roof dripped into my Netgear router and
killed it. That version of the router is no longer available. Since I
really liked it, I bought a newer Netgear router. Oops! The archived
configuration file for the old router is not compatible with the new
router. Settings I had made on the old router to block certain hostile
sites could not be recreated. The file is binary, so I could not
manually read it to setup the new router.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

The Republican Party has abandoned all principles and has
instead become a personality cult worshiping Donald Trump.

In article <sWgreKgTYPtgFwnz@255soft.uk>, J. P. Gilliver (John)
<G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver?

apple airprint and google cloudprint have been around for many years,
although the latter has been deprecated as of this past january.

In article <ihkclrFlg81U1@mid.individual.net>, Ken Blake
<ken@invalidemail.com> wrote:

> Unfortunately it's not possible because the printer manufacturers
> choose to design each printer differently from all its others and all
> its competitors. Why do they do that? Because they don't want anyone to
> use an old printer with a new version of Windows; they want you to buy a
> new printer.

no, it's because newer printers can do things older printers can't
(higher resolution, more inks, better colours, duplex, etc.) which will
require new drivers to expose the new features.

it's also because there aren't enough older printers still in use to
justify maintaining old code.

On 2021-05-31 11:07 a.m., nospam wrote:
> In article <sWgreKgTYPtgFwnz@255soft.uk>, J. P. Gilliver (John)
> <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:
>
>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver?
>
> apple airprint and google cloudprint have been around for many years,
> although the latter has been deprecated as of this past january.
>

I purchased an Okidata c5150n Color Laserget in 2006,this is a high
quality printer fit for office use but great for home use.
It came with the driver disc plus 2 more disc full of software, and has
been a great machine.
To this day it still uses the same driver that it came with, 14 years
ago it works with all windows since XP, including Windows 10, That's a
close to a good driver as it gets.

Rene

In article <ihkhklFmgooU1@mid.individual.net>, Rene Lamontagne
<rlamont@shaw.ca> wrote:

> >
> >> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver?
> >
> > apple airprint and google cloudprint have been around for many years,
> > although the latter has been deprecated as of this past january.
> >
>
>
> I purchased an Okidata c5150n Color Laserget in 2006,this is a high
> quality printer fit for office use but great for home use.
> It came with the driver disc plus 2 more disc full of software, and has
> been a great machine.
> To this day it still uses the same driver that it came with, 14 years
> ago it works with all windows since XP, including Windows 10, That's a
> close to a good driver as it gets.

that's specific to that printer and also windows, not a universal print
driver.

On 2021-05-31 11:43 a.m., nospam wrote:
> In article <ihkhklFmgooU1@mid.individual.net>, Rene Lamontagne
> <rlamont@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>>>
>>>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver?
>>>
>>> apple airprint and google cloudprint have been around for many years,
>>> although the latter has been deprecated as of this past january.
>>>
>>
>>
>> I purchased an Okidata c5150n Color Laserget in 2006,this is a high
>> quality printer fit for office use but great for home use.
>> It came with the driver disc plus 2 more disc full of software, and has
>> been a great machine.
>> To this day it still uses the same driver that it came with, 14 years
>> ago it works with all windows since XP, including Windows 10, That's a
>> close to a good driver as it gets.
>
> that's specific to that printer and also windows, not a universal print
> driver.
>

Never said Universal, Said Good.

Rene

In article <ihkimcFmn2jU1@mid.individual.net>, Rene Lamontagne
<rlamont@shaw.ca> wrote:

> >>>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver?
> >>>
> >>> apple airprint and google cloudprint have been around for many years,
> >>> although the latter has been deprecated as of this past january.
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> I purchased an Okidata c5150n Color Laserget in 2006,this is a high
> >> quality printer fit for office use but great for home use.
> >> It came with the driver disc plus 2 more disc full of software, and has
> >> been a great machine.
> >> To this day it still uses the same driver that it came with, 14 years
> >> ago it works with all windows since XP, including Windows 10, That's a
> >> close to a good driver as it gets.
> >
> > that's specific to that printer and also windows, not a universal print
> > driver.
> >
>
> Never said Universal, Said Good.

right, but the original question was for universal:
> >>>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver?

On Mon, 31 May 2021 at 08:46:37, David E. Ross
<not_me@not_there.invalid> wrote (my responses usually follow points
raised):
>On 5/31/2021 8:11 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On 5/31/2021 7:43 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
>>> the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
>>> innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
>>> years, possibly over a decade.
>>
>>
>> I also wish there was. If a universal printer driver were possible, it
>> wouldn't even have to be a driver. It code could be built into Windows.

True.
>>
>> Unfortunately it's not possible because the printer manufacturers
>> choose to design each printer differently from all its others and all
>> its competitors. Why do they do that? Because they don't want anyone to
>> use an old printer with a new version of Windows; they want you to buy a
>> new printer.

I still think whichever one brought out a "needs no driver" printer -
or, given they'd have to produce the universal driver initially, said
"all our future printers will need no driver after this one" - would
make a killing, or at least clean up. But they're all too cowardly.
>
>I have a stand-alone scanner, a Canon CanoScan N670U. Purchased in
>2002, it still works quite well. However, it is connected to my wife's
>Windows XP SP3 PC because its driver could not be installed on my
>Windows 7 SP1 PC. If my wife's PC dies, I have a working scanner that
>cannot be used.

I have a 656U (same as the 650U - the extra 6 just means it's silver
rather than white on top), and was in a similar boat - until someone
told me which other scanner driver to use. (Sorry, can't tell you which,
as it actually appears in my TWAIN selection list under its own number;
it _might_ have been 1220U, or 1205. Might be different for the 670
anyway. I can certainly share the files I've got.) But don't despair,
there may well be a driver that _does_ work for it under 7. My 656 works
fine (AFAICR, with no wrinkles at all).
>
>Why do I still use Windows 7? I have applications that I use that are
>no longer being updated, and I cannot find equivalent replacements.
>Some had to be install in my Windows 7 using Windows XP compatibility
>mode. They just will not install in Windows 8 or later.

VMs? (I hate the idea of the hassle, but am going to have to learn to
use them one of these days.)
>
>Early this year, a leak in my roof dripped into my Netgear router and
>killed it. That version of the router is no longer available. Since I
>really liked it, I bought a newer Netgear router. Oops! The archived
>configuration file for the old router is not compatible with the new
>router. Settings I had made on the old router to block certain hostile
>sites could not be recreated. The file is binary, so I could not
>manually read it to setup the new router.
>
I know the feeling )-:. (It's basically the old "stop the world, I want
to get off.")
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

But this can only happen if we replace the urge to blame with the urge to
learn so that it is safe for staff to admit errors and raise concerns without
the fear of being punished.
- Former MI5 boss Eliza Manningham-Buller, RT 2016/5/7-13

On 2021-05-31 11:57 a.m., nospam wrote:
> In article <ihkimcFmn2jU1@mid.individual.net>, Rene Lamontagne
> <rlamont@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>>>>>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver?
>>>>>
>>>>> apple airprint and google cloudprint have been around for many years,
>>>>> although the latter has been deprecated as of this past january.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I purchased an Okidata c5150n Color Laserget in 2006,this is a high
>>>> quality printer fit for office use but great for home use.
>>>> It came with the driver disc plus 2 more disc full of software, and has
>>>> been a great machine.
>>>> To this day it still uses the same driver that it came with, 14 years
>>>> ago it works with all windows since XP, including Windows 10, That's a
>>>> close to a good driver as it gets.
>>>
>>> that's specific to that printer and also windows, not a universal print
>>> driver.
>>>
>>
>> Never said Universal, Said Good.
>
> right, but the original question was for universal:
>>>>>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver?

I know, but seeing Universal drivers don't exist (like Unicorns) I
figured I would throw in the next best thing. :-)

Rene

On Mon, 31 May 2021 15:43:31 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
<G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

>I've just read through (in the '10 'group) yet another printer driver
>thread.
>
>Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
>the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
>innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
>years, possibly over a decade. Printing, basically, is the creation of a
>matrix of dots in black and colours. So surely it ought to be possible,
>by now, to have come up with something all printers (other than
>daisywheel/golfball ones) could be fed with and work? OK, those with
>extra features, like more than black-plus-three-colours or variable spot
>sizes, maybe need something different, but even those ought to be able
>to work with some standard output, just not use their extra features.
>Certainly, the majority of models don't _have_ such features (or in the
>case of the spot size, do the conversion internally).
>
>Same for scanners; RGB rasterisation of data, and maybe control of
>resolution and scan area to speed things up/give a preview mode.
>
>I know the usual argument - there's no incentive for manufacturers to
>agree, and in fact disincentive, to ensure that working hardware keeps
>going obsolete - but surely the first one to say "works straight away
>with the standard driver, no need to hunt for one" will get a lot of
>buyers.
>
>Back in the days of "dot matrix" (I've always thought an odd name - all
>but daisywheel/golfball use a matrix of dots), there was a de facto such
>standard - EPSON; other makers, if they knew what was good for them, had
>a switch inside their printer that made it behave like an EPSON, as
>everything (that was in DOS days when each software! had its own printer
>drivers) had an EPSON driver.

Ken has the best answer. The computer business is based on planned
obsolescence. The main reason why people need to go to the latest and
greatest is software and hardware are specifically designed not to
work with older versions and for no particular reason except to keep
the marketplace full of new stuff and landfills full of perfectly
serviceable equipment that was killed off on purpose.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote in
news:sWgreKgTYPtgFwnz@255soft.uk:

> I've just read through (in the '10 'group) yet another printer driver
> thread.
>
> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
> the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
> innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
> years, possibly over a decade.

A truly 'universal' printer driver, that is one that will output to all
printers, would recognize two functions - line feed and page feed. And
would output to LP:. Any other feature is a customization created by the
printer manufacturer, which is where this problem comes from.

I remember reading one time the statement that the driver that came
closest to being universal was the basic postscript driver. But most
printer manufacturers don't want to pay the Adobe license fee, as it
would add too much cost to their printers.

J. P. Gilliver (John) <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 31 May 2021 at 08:46:37, David E. Ross
> <not_me@not_there.invalid> wrote (my responses usually follow points
> raised):
>> On 5/31/2021 8:11 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
>>> On 5/31/2021 7:43 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
>>>> the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
>>>> innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
>>>> years, possibly over a decade.
>>>
>>>
>>> I also wish there was. If a universal printer driver were possible, it
>>> wouldn't even have to be a driver. It code could be built into Windows.
>
> True.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately it's not possible because the printer manufacturers
>>> choose to design each printer differently from all its others and all
>>> its competitors. Why do they do that? Because they don't want anyone to
>>> use an old printer with a new version of Windows; they want you to buy a
>>> new printer.
>
> I still think whichever one brought out a "needs no driver" printer -
> or, given they'd have to produce the universal driver initially, said
> "all our future printers will need no driver after this one" - would
> make a killing, or at least clean up. But they're all too cowardly.
>>
>> I have a stand-alone scanner, a Canon CanoScan N670U. Purchased in
>> 2002, it still works quite well. However, it is connected to my wife's
>> Windows XP SP3 PC because its driver could not be installed on my
>> Windows 7 SP1 PC. If my wife's PC dies, I have a working scanner that
>> cannot be used.
>
> I have a 656U (same as the 650U - the extra 6 just means it's silver
> rather than white on top), and was in a similar boat - until someone
> told me which other scanner driver to use. (Sorry, can't tell you which,
> as it actually appears in my TWAIN selection list under its own number;
> it _might_ have been 1220U, or 1205. Might be different for the 670
> anyway. I can certainly share the files I've got.) But don't despair,
> there may well be a driver that _does_ work for it under 7. My 656 works
> fine (AFAICR, with no wrinkles at all).
>>
>> Why do I still use Windows 7? I have applications that I use that are
>> no longer being updated, and I cannot find equivalent replacements.
>> Some had to be install in my Windows 7 using Windows XP compatibility
>> mode. They just will not install in Windows 8 or later.
>
> VMs? (I hate the idea of the hassle, but am going to have to learn to
> use them one of these days.)
>>
>> Early this year, a leak in my roof dripped into my Netgear router and
>> killed it. That version of the router is no longer available. Since I
>> really liked it, I bought a newer Netgear router. Oops! The archived
>> configuration file for the old router is not compatible with the new
>> router. Settings I had made on the old router to block certain hostile
>> sites could not be recreated. The file is binary, so I could not
>> manually read it to setup the new router.
>>
> I know the feeling )-:. (It's basically the old "stop the world, I want
> to get off.")

Be careful what you wish for. Canon don't provide Mac drivers for my
printer and significant feature like draft mode don't work with the
"universal" driver.

Although, it is orders of magnitude more stable than the windows print
manager which regularly refuses to accept that the printer is on and
online.

In article <s938qj$g2i$1@dont-email.me>, Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Be careful what you wish for. Canon don't provide Mac drivers for my
> printer and significant feature like draft mode don't work with the
> "universal" driver.

which canon printer?

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> I've just read through (in the '10 'group) yet another printer driver
> thread.
>
> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
> the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
> innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
> years, possibly over a decade. Printing, basically, is the creation of a
> matrix of dots in black and colours. So surely it ought to be possible,
> by now, to have come up with something all printers (other than
> daisywheel/golfball ones) could be fed with and work? OK, those with
> extra features, like more than black-plus-three-colours or variable spot
> sizes, maybe need something different, but even those ought to be able
> to work with some standard output, just not use their extra features.
> Certainly, the majority of models don't _have_ such features (or in the
> case of the spot size, do the conversion internally).
>
> Same for scanners; RGB rasterisation of data, and maybe control of
> resolution and scan area to speed things up/give a preview mode.
>
> I know the usual argument - there's no incentive for manufacturers to
> agree, and in fact disincentive, to ensure that working hardware keeps
> going obsolete - but surely the first one to say "works straight away
> with the standard driver, no need to hunt for one" will get a lot of
> buyers.
>
> Back in the days of "dot matrix" (I've always thought an odd name - all
> but daisywheel/golfball use a matrix of dots), there was a de facto such
> standard - EPSON; other makers, if they knew what was good for them, had
> a switch inside their printer that made it behave like an EPSON, as
> everything (that was in DOS days when each software! had its own printer
> drivers) had an EPSON driver.

There are universal printer drivers.

https://www8.hp.com/us/en/solutions/business-solutions/printingsolutions/upd.html

In this case, it is a Microsoft Framework, into which a printer seller
places their goods.

In this case, the subset is "HP, Postscript, PCL6, PCL5?", in which
case the OP in the Windows 7 thread might benefit. The Postscript and
PCL would likely be separate items. They were the last time I
investigated the topic. I use an older Postscript one from HP,
as a "Print to FILE" donkey, so I have used the concept. The newer
one for PostScript, may produce "bitmap" output, so if distilled
to PDF, you can't copy/pasta the text.

But these things are largely a tease, in that they have the
materials of a "generic" driver. And would hardly give photo
quality prints on a "Photo Printer". It would turn your nice
printer, into "just a printer", a thing for 8.5x11 rather than
4x6.

To some extend, it might depend on your skills importing a .ppd
for the printer, as to what shows in the menu.

It's like on my inkjet, the manufacturer GUI interface allows
some decent choices for Photo Printing. I have a small quantity of
Photo Paper/Card and have made wallet photos with a glossy kind of
finish. I doubt if a PCL generic driver existed for my printer,
that these options would be offered.

This is a topic of annoyance, not salvation.

You were probably thinking Universal in the same sense
as buying a copy of https://www.hamrick.com/ for a scanner.

Paul

On Mon, 31 May 2021 18:10:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
> Although, it is orders of magnitude more stable than the windows print
> manager which regularly refuses to accept that the printer is on and
> online.
>

I have the same problem with my Windows 7 laptop and Brother HL-
L2380DW printer via wireless. I stumbled on a solution of resetting
the print spooler, and that works every time (until the next time I
shut down or restart or hibernate).

I created the following batch file, then set its properties to run
elevated:

net stop Spooler
net start Spooler
@pause

I created a shortcut to the batch file, with shortcut key
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+P for print.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
https://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

> I have a 656U (same as the 650U - the extra 6 just means it's silver
> rather than white on top), and was in a similar boat - until someone
> told me which other scanner driver to use.

My Canon Canoscan 650U scanner ran fine until Windows 8, and Canon chose
not to update the driver. The Vuescan scanner app (trial) worked, but at
$30 I chose to buy a new scanner. I hated throwing away a scanner that
still worked though.

In alt.comp.os.windows-10 kelown <kelown@privacy.invalid> wrote:

> > I have a 656U (same as the 650U - the extra 6 just means it's silver
> > rather than white on top), and was in a similar boat - until someone
> > told me which other scanner driver to use.

> My Canon Canoscan 650U scanner ran fine until Windows 8, and Canon chose
> not to update the driver. The Vuescan scanner app (trial) worked, but at
> $30 I chose to buy a new scanner. I hated throwing away a scanner that
> still worked though.

It's true for ANY useful thing that still worked. :(
--
RIP 2 the dead American military personnels & my over decade old EVGA X58 SLI (132-BL-E758; BIOS date 5/11/2010; v6.00 PG; release number IX58SZ64) mobo that was just cleaned on 5/30/2021. :(
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

On Mon, 31 May 2021 15:43:31 +0100, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> I've just read through (in the '10 'group) yet another printer driver
> thread.
>
> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
> the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
> innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
> years, possibly over a decade. Printing, basically, is the creation of a
> matrix of dots in black and colours. So surely it ought to be possible,
> by now, to have come up with something all printers (other than
> daisywheel/golfball ones) could be fed with and work? OK, those with
> extra features, like more than black-plus-three-colours or variable spot
> sizes, maybe need something different, but even those ought to be able
> to work with some standard output, just not use their extra features.
> Certainly, the majority of models don't _have_ such features (or in the
> case of the spot size, do the conversion internally).
>
> Same for scanners; RGB rasterisation of data, and maybe control of
> resolution and scan area to speed things up/give a preview mode.
>
> I know the usual argument - there's no incentive for manufacturers to
> agree, and in fact disincentive, to ensure that working hardware keeps
> going obsolete - but surely the first one to say "works straight away
> with the standard driver, no need to hunt for one" will get a lot of
> buyers.
>
> Back in the days of "dot matrix" (I've always thought an odd name - all
> but daisywheel/golfball use a matrix of dots), there was a de facto such
> standard - EPSON; other makers, if they knew what was good for them, had
> a switch inside their printer that made it behave like an EPSON, as
> everything (that was in DOS days when each software! had its own printer
> drivers) had an EPSON driver.

I think it's mainly due to these facts:

1. Printers have different set of features.

2. Printer device communication protocol is not extensible, or is not
extensible enough.

3. Printer technology evolve quickly enough.

Meaning that manufacturers are forced to use their own device communication
protocol so that it can cover all of their devices' features.

They can not use existing device communication protocol because of point #2.

And companies couldn't make a standard device communication protocol because
of point #3. At least, a reliable one.

Compare that with e.g. keyboard & mouse devices, which don't evolve until
it's added with macro/programmable keys, and the relatively recent RGB
lighting. To this day, there's no standard for those features yet. That is
why there is no generic/universal software which controls/configures those
additional features yet.

nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> In article <s938qj$g2i$1@dont-email.me>, Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Be careful what you wish for. Canon don't provide Mac drivers for my
>> printer and significant feature like draft mode don't work with the
>> "universal" driver.
>
> which canon printer?

TR 7550

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Mon, 31 May 2021 18:10:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>> Although, it is orders of magnitude more stable than the windows print
>> manager which regularly refuses to accept that the printer is on and
>> online.
>>
>
> I have the same problem with my Windows 7 laptop and Brother HL-
> L2380DW printer via wireless. I stumbled on a solution of resetting
> the print spooler, and that works every time (until the next time I
> shut down or restart or hibernate).
>
> I created the following batch file, then set its properties to run
> elevated:
>
> net stop Spooler
> net start Spooler
> @pause
>
> I created a shortcut to the batch file, with shortcut key
> Ctrl+Shift+Alt+P for print.

Ooh. That looks useful. Most of the time if I run the troubleshooter it
fixes it, but not always. Do you know if your batch file works on win10?

On Tue, 1 Jun 2021 at 18:26:02, JJ <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
>On Mon, 31 May 2021 15:43:31 +0100, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>> I've just read through (in the '10 'group) yet another printer driver
>> thread.
>>
>> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
[snip]
>> Same for scanners; RGB rasterisation of data, and maybe control of
>> resolution and scan area to speed things up/give a preview mode.
>>
>> I know the usual argument - there's no incentive for manufacturers to
>> agree, and in fact disincentive, to ensure that working hardware keeps
>> going obsolete - but surely the first one to say "works straight away
[]
>I think it's mainly due to these facts:
>
>1. Printers have different set of features.

Yes, but a lowest common denominator could "work".
>
>2. Printer device communication protocol is not extensible, or is not
>extensible enough.

(I'm not sure what "extensible" means.)
>
>3. Printer technology evolve quickly enough.

Ten or twenty years ago, I'd have agreed with you. But as I said, I've
not seen any new development in printing in at least the last decade
that made me sit up and take notice. Also, even if there was some
wonderful new way of getting the substance onto the paper (or burning
the paper in some clever way, or whatever), the underlying principle
would remain: you want to send raster dot data to the printer. How it
converts that to marks doesn't really matter.
>
>Meaning that manufacturers are forced to use their own device communication
>protocol so that it can cover all of their devices' features.

Yes, I agree (though many of the "features" - such as booklet printing,
for example - are done at the computer). But a _basic_ - say,
four-colour (including black) - printer "engine" would cover the
majority of at least budget printers.
>
>They can not use existing device communication protocol because of point #2.
>
>And companies couldn't make a standard device communication protocol because
>of point #3. At least, a reliable one.

Hmm. We'll have to agree to disagree on that!
>
>Compare that with e.g. keyboard & mouse devices, which don't evolve until
>it's added with macro/programmable keys, and the relatively recent RGB
>lighting. To this day, there's no standard for those features yet. That is
>why there is no generic/universal software which controls/configures those
>additional features yet.

No, but if you plug one of those keyboards into a machine without the
necessary drivers, it'll still work as a basic keyboard; same ought to
apply to printers (and scanners).

It's all pie-in-the-sky - I know it'll never happen )-:.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Tolerating intolerance is not a virtue." - Barry Shein

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:
> I've just read through (in the '10 'group) yet another printer driver
> thread.
>
> Why is there not, in 2021, a universal printer driver? Surely, by now,
> the basics of printing are established; I haven't heard of a new
> innovation in printing that made me think "gee, that's clever" for
> years, possibly over a decade. Printing, basically, is the creation of a
> matrix of dots in black and colours. So surely it ought to be possible,
> by now, to have come up with something all printers (other than
> daisywheel/golfball ones) could be fed with and work? OK, those with
> extra features, like more than black-plus-three-colours or variable spot
> sizes, maybe need something different, but even those ought to be able
> to work with some standard output, just not use their extra features.
> Certainly, the majority of models don't _have_ such features (or in the
> case of the spot size, do the conversion internally).

See Paul's response.

Any decent printer should understand Postscript or/and some level of
(HP's) PCL (Printer Command Language [1]), probably PCL5 or PCL6. And
I'm sure that any decent Windows (Oops, you included Windows 10! :-))
has generic drivers for these languages.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_Command_Language>

[...]

On 6/1/2021 3:53 PM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>
> Any decent printer should understand Postscript
>
I don't know of any printer that handles PostScript files other than
PostScript printers. OTOH. since valid PostScript files can be written
in ASCII (but gets complicated when images are involved), PostScript
printers are as universal as it gets because they are independent of the OS.

The "downside" is that they are not aimed at casual users. My PS
printers and the apps that generate valid PS cost well over $100k US.

--
best regards,

Neil