PCL importance in choosing laser printer

[jbuch]

I was wondering just how important PCL is in when choosing a printer. As
I'm researching brands/specs I find that some have PCL6 emulation, others at
4, still some models with GDI.

Isn't the PCL portion of the print capabilities handled by the drivers?
Wouldn't I be able to find a driver (assumably) to handle whatever model I
choose? If I choose a PCL4 model over a PCL6, would/may I lose some type of
output capability?

So far, the models i'm interested in are as follows, any experienced
comments are greatly appreciated. Or, some online resource I may not have
found to help identify the important considerations when making a decision.
I'm looking for a dedicated laser for text-based printing, photos and other
will be a separate machine to come later.

Brother - HL 1440, HL 1435, HL 5040
HP 1012
Konica/Minolta - PagePro 1250W, PagePro 1350W

---------------

The driver doesn't do the same thing as the PCL..., but it does enable
or work with the PCL of the particular printer. That is one of the
reasons for different printers having different drivers, or for one
master driver to be able to drive a lot of printers.

PCL is embedded in the electronics inside the printer.

Each higher version of PCL includes more features of one sort or
another. Thus, as you go to older printers with lover versions of PCL,
you have somewhat fewer detailed capabilities.

For the average user with letters and stuff, it doesn't make a tinker's
difference.

GDI printer doesn't have much electronics inside the printer, and has no
PDL but actually prints a graphic image.... GDI stands for Graphics
Device...... and your computer does the work that the electronics
inside PostScript or PDL printers do inside the printer. Cheaper...
cheaper... cheaper printers.

If you aren't doing much graphics and stuff in high volume, you can
ignore most of this stuff and simply go cheap and for the most part, you
will be satisfied.

Jim


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[b i g]

I was wondering just how important PCL is in when choosing a printer. As
I'm researching brands/specs I find that some have PCL6 emulation, others at
4, still some models with GDI.

Isn't the PCL portion of the print capabilities handled by the drivers?
Wouldn't I be able to find a driver (assumably) to handle whatever model I
choose? If I choose a PCL4 model over a PCL6, would/may I lose some type of
output capability?

So far, the models i'm interested in are as follows, any experienced
comments are greatly appreciated. Or, some online resource I may not have
found to help identify the important considerations when making a decision.
I'm looking for a dedicated laser for text-based printing, photos and other
will be a separate machine to come later.

Brother - HL 1440, HL 1435, HL 5040
HP 1012
Konica/Minolta - PagePro 1250W, PagePro 1350W

thanks for your time and assistance.

big

 

[Alan]

I was wondering just how important PCL is in when choosing a printer. As
I'm researching brands/specs I find that some have PCL6 emulation, others at
4, still some models with GDI.

Depends what you want or plan to do. PCL (or even better, PostScript;
if you're into DTP you just about have to use that) are open standard,
high-level "page description languages". Just about any software:
Windows, DOS, Mac, Linux can use them (i.e. the drivers are included
in the OS). GDI printers have a proprietary interface and depend on
drivers that you can only get from the manufacturer. So if they don't
support your setup, you have a paperweight. This has happened when the
company goes out of business or just can't be bothered to rewrite
their drivers for later OSs when the printer is a few years old and no
longer for sale -- and lasers can be expected to be in service for at
least five years. I have a 12-year-old HP4.

A GDI printer is simpler as it basically just accepts a giant bitmap
rather than having to interpret the PDL. That means your PC is doing
more work (which though it's probably easily capable of) and also
probably sending much more data, which can slow things down.

PCL4 was in HPIIs in 1989, it supports bitmap fonts and simple
geometric shapes. PCL5 and above is much more sophisticated, scaleable
fonts, etc. I think PCL6 can use Truetype natively (others have to
have it converted on the fly).

Personally I'd never buy a GDI laser printer, but if you're just using
Windows and some standard apps, it would probably be fine. But if you
expect to be using it for more than a couple of years, get a smarter
printer; most manufacturers seem to use GDI for their cheapest models,
so the general quality of the machine is probably lower too.