Postscript Laser Printer?

[ncage]

Hi everyone, i bought a Lexmark Optra T 612 Laser Printer that has the
following printing languages:
PCL 6 Emulation
Personal Printer Data Stream (PPDS)
PCL 5e Emulation
PCL 3 Emulation

When i installed the drivers for the printer, it actually installed 3
printers
1) Regular driver
2) PS3 Driver
3) another driver that just says (ms) at the end..i have no idea what this
is.

Im kinda confused on what postscript actually is. I heard that you usually
use postscript for vector images and such. I did a test. I had a huge
graphic image that i printed and i first printed it with the regular driver
and then again with the ps3 driver. It reduced the size of the print job by
about 30% when i used the ps3 drivers. I guess my question basically is,
when would i want to use the ps3 driver? Would i usually want to stick with
the windows driver? If the printer has all the ps emulations why does it
only install ps3 driver and not 5 and 6? Next does anyone have any idea on
the third driver what (ms) is? Im guessing PPDS is the normal windows driver
but im not sure. Ive only used either inkjet printers or Cheap Lasers (NEC
1260) previously and i don't really understand what some of these advanced
options are.

thanks in advance for any help,
Brent

 

[ojai00]

Postscript fonts are usually used with Macs, and some PC applications if you require a Postscript font. Most of the Windows programs use TrueType fonts. Most of the HP Laser Printers have PCL 6 or PCL 5/5e, so I would assume those emulators are trying to mirror what the HP printers do (but I'm not really sure). Hope this helps

 

[bozo1]

You probably have no need for postscript. Fonts and graphics are embedded in postscript files so they are usually used when a company is sending a document (or manual or book) to a printing company/publisher so the printed result is the same regardless of the hardware printed from or to.