Printer Command Language , more commonly referred to as PCL , is a page description language (PDL) developed by Hewlett-Packard as a printer protocol and has become a de facto industry standard . Originally developed for early inkjet printers in 1984, PCL has been released in varying levels for thermal , matrix , and page printers. HP-GL/2 and PJL are supported by later versions of PCL.
6-481: PCL is occasionally and incorrectly said to be an abbreviation for Printer Control Language which actually is another term for page description language . PCL levels 1 through 5e/5c are command-based languages using control sequences that are processed and interpreted in the order they are received. At a consumer level, PCL data streams are generated by a print driver. PCL output can also be easily generated by custom applications. HP introduced PCL 6 around 1995 with
12-411: A page description language ( PDL ) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap (or generally raster graphics ). An overlapping term is printer control language , which includes Hewlett-Packard's Printer Command Language (PCL). PostScript is one of the most noted page description languages. The markup language adaptation of
18-644: Is not a new idea: it is comparable with Display Postscript and Apple's Quartz, and is in contrast to "GDI Printers" where a compressed bitmap is sent to the printer. JetReady printers (CLJ 3500/3550/3600) use undocumented extensions but otherwise mandate Class 3.0 inputs. PJL ( Printer Job Language ) was introduced on the HP LaserJet IIIsi. PJL adds job level controls, such as printer language switching, job separation, environment commands, status feedback, device attendance and file system commands. Page description language In digital printing ,
24-757: Is restricted to binary encoding as opposed to PostScript, which can be sent either as binary code or as plain text. The plain-text commands and code examples shown in the PCL programming documentation are meant to be compiled with a utility like HP's JetASM before being sent to a printer. PCL 6 Enhanced is designed to match the drawing model of Windows GDI . In this way, the Windows printer driver simply passes through GDI commands with very little modification, leading to faster return-to-application times. Microsoft has extended this concept with its next-generation XPS format, and printer implementations of XPS are being developed. This
30-506: The HP LaserJet 4000 series printers. It consists of: PCL 6 "Enhanced" architecture was altered to be more modular and to be more easily modified for future HP printers, that it prints complex graphics faster, that it reduces network traffic, and has higher quality. In early implementations, HP did not market PCL 6 well, thus causing some confusion in terminology. PCL XL was renamed to PCL 6 Enhanced, but many third-party products still use
36-401: The older term. Some products may claim to be PCL 6 compliant, but may not include the PCL 5 backward compatibility. PCL 6 Enhanced is primarily generated by the printer drivers under Windows and CUPS . Due to its structure and compression methodology, custom applications rarely use it directly. PCL 6 Enhanced is a stack-based, object-oriented protocol, similar to PostScript . However, it
#851148