Should I use Postscript or PCL?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

I just bought a large b/w printer and am hooking it up to my computer
network. I have the choice of two drives, PCL or Postscript. The
question, which one should I use? In case it makes a difference the
use varies widely for this printer. We do a lot of printing from
Office (Word and Excel mostly) and as well will be doing a lot of
desktop publishing (mostly from Adobe InDesign and other Adobe
Products) and as well at times it will be used for printing pictures.
Thanks for any help.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

> MarkW <markwco(removenospam)@comcast.net> wrote:

> I just bought a large b/w printer and am hooking it up to
> my computer network. I have the choice of two drives,
> PCL or Postscript.

I presume by "drives" you mean "drivers", specifically
Windows drivers, and/or perhaps Mac.

> The question, which one should I use?

Both. I always install both.

Assuming a demographic demarcation here ...
Default the MS/Office users to the PCL "printer".
Default the Adobe users to the PS model.

Teach both groups how to select the other printer
model if they run into issues with:
- printer config (duplex, halftone, scaling, N-up)
- performance (PDF may be faster to "PS" printers)
- rendering results, particularly on images

--
Regards, Bob Niland mailto:name@ispname.tld
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

In message <k2qtv014a0slb0605hh2967t4lk8v57q4l@4ax.com>, MarkW
<markwco@comcast.net> writes#

>I just bought a large b/w printer and am hooking it up to my computer
>network. I have the choice of two drives, PCL or Postscript.

Horses for courses...


> The
>question, which one should I use?

Whichever has least bugs for your purposes.

If neither have significant bugs, then whichever is quicker !


> In case it makes a difference the
>use varies widely for this printer. We do a lot of printing from
>Office (Word and Excel mostly)

OK, I default that to PCL. Office generates hugely inefficient
postscript.


> and as well will be doing a lot of
>desktop publishing (mostly from Adobe InDesign and other Adobe
>Products)

Sympathies.

With enough memory Pagemaker 6.5 is OK. PM7 might actually be better ?

In design we gave up on after 1.5, but in my experienve, 1.5 was quick
with PCL but wouldn't print full duplex to out HPLJ2M+. For that we had
to use PS, and that was well slow...


> and as well at times it will be used for printing pictures.
>Thanks for any help.

Yes. That's mostly what made out postscript slow.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore