Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Alvin Scholten

Ganesh Pandey

Peter W Wong

Zhanbing Wu

Amanda Nguyen

Eigo Shimizu

A computer system and method for outputting printer commands to a printer in response to a print request from an application program are presented. The printer includes a device font whose characters are addressed for printing via a single, double, or n-byte code. The text data, however, utilizes the Unicode Standard to identify its characters. The system, therefore, includes a graphics device interface, which is compatible to read the Unicode data, to invoke the printer driver functions for controlling the outputting of the text data to the printer. A printer OEM supplied minidriver contains a characterization of the printer, including information identifying the device font resident in the printer and the code used to identify the individual characters of the font. A printer driver uses this information to translate the text data to be printed from the Unicode Standard to a code capable of selecting a device font provided character.

Printer driver supporting worldwide single binary font format with built in support for double byte characters

Printer driver and method for supporting worldwide single binary font format with built in support for double byte characters

A modular Universal Printer Driver is provided which dramatically improves the extensibility of the driver architecture and the support for printer features. This driver operates in conjunction with OEM developed minidrivers which utilize the text based Generic Printer Description (GPD) format of the instant invention. The universal driver allows the GPD text based minidrivers to add and define new features introduced by the printer OEM. The universal driver also allows the GPD minidriver to modify, add, or replace the standard user interface provided by the universal driver. The universal driver and the text based GPD minidrivers are included in a computer system for outputting data to an output device, such as a printer. This system includes an application program which invokes a plurality of graphics device interface functions to control the sending of data to the printer. Within the system, a graphics device interface invokes device driver functions for controlling the outputting of data. The text based minidriver contains a characterization of the output device, and an implementation of device specific device driver functions invoked by the graphic device interface. This text based minidriver outputs this data to the universal driver. This universal driver incorporates the text based characterization passed by the minidriver. The universal driver implements the device specific driver functions and controls the outputting of data to the printer in accordance with the incorporated text based characterization.

Modular and extensible printer device driver and text based method for characterizing printer devices for use therewith

A computer system and method for outputting printer commands to a printer in response to a print request from an application program are presented. The printer includes a device font whose characters are addressed for printing via a single, double, or n-byte code. The text data to be printed, however, utilizes the Unicode Standard to identify its characters. The system, therefore, includes a graphics device interface, which is compatible to read the Unicode data, to invoke the printer driver functions for controlling the outputting of the text data to the printer. A printer OEM supplied minidriver contains a characterization of the printer, including information identifying the device font resident in the printer and the code used to identify the individual characters of the font. A printer driver uses this information to translate the text data to be printed from the Unicode Standard to a code capable of selecting a device font provided character. This system and method greatly enhance printer performance by utilizing, to the maximum extent possible, printer resident device fonts. This system also eliminates the need for separate printer drivers to support separate language symbol sets. Printing of both proportional and fixed pitch characters in the same device font is also provided.

A system and method of printing documents having merged text and graphics is presented which overcomes the Z-order problem of merging text and graphics on a raster printer and which enhances printing performance. The system and method analyze a location of the text and graphics elements to be printed to determine if and where any potential merging problems exist. In these regions, the system and method selectively redraws the text as part of the merged bitmap graphic. The remainder of the text on the document is printed with device resident fonts, either directly or through downloading the device font, if possible. This greatly enhances printing performance. If the text information is not supported or supportable by a device font, the text elements are drawn as bitmaps to be printed by the printer.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Alvin Scholten