In computers, a printer driver or a print processor is a piece of software that converts the data to be printed to the form specific to a printer. The purpose of printer drivers is to allow applications to do printing without being aware of the technical details of each printer model.
Printer driver resides on the computer and gives the computer or the OS to understand the printer capabilities. Operating system use drivers to use all the printer features.
Windows is supplied with the popular printer drivers. To check windows built in drivers, go to Control Panel, Printers and Faxes, Add printer. But be careful about new printer models and less common printer model drivers. These drivers can be downloaded from manufacturer's website or you can install them from the CD provided by the manufacturer. Printers have some built in fonts and other font they have to download. Printer driver tells the computer what printer language printer uses and which font are built in. It also manages all the optional components of the printer like duplex unit, optional bypass, optional paper feeders unit and so on. I remember one of our customer complained that his printer's paper tray is not feeding papers. He was trying to configure HP's small printer driver with a heavy duty printer of another manufacturer. I just installed the correct driver and everything was OK.
Manufactures of the less popular printers usually produce printer drivers for the most common operating systems, but they are often unwilling to produce drivers for the specialist and less popular systems or for old systems. Because of this, printer driver provide a long term support problem, the majority of operating systems are updated and upgraded frequently, and the printer driver designed for an old version of the system may not be suitable for the latest version. If you want to buy a printer, it is better to have a popular printer which the OS provides driver for. Otherwise you may face printer driver problem soon or later. It is good habbit to check the manufactur website for drivers before buying a new one.
Printer driver resides on the computer and gives the computer or the OS to understand the printer capabilities. Operating system use drivers to use all the printer features.
Windows is supplied with the popular printer drivers. To check windows built in drivers, go to Control Panel, Printers and Faxes, Add printer. But be careful about new printer models and less common printer model drivers. These drivers can be downloaded from manufacturer's website or you can install them from the CD provided by the manufacturer. Printers have some built in fonts and other font they have to download. Printer driver tells the computer what printer language printer uses and which font are built in. It also manages all the optional components of the printer like duplex unit, optional bypass, optional paper feeders unit and so on. I remember one of our customer complained that his printer's paper tray is not feeding papers. He was trying to configure HP's small printer driver with a heavy duty printer of another manufacturer. I just installed the correct driver and everything was OK.
Manufactures of the less popular printers usually produce printer drivers for the most common operating systems, but they are often unwilling to produce drivers for the specialist and less popular systems or for old systems. Because of this, printer driver provide a long term support problem, the majority of operating systems are updated and upgraded frequently, and the printer driver designed for an old version of the system may not be suitable for the latest version. If you want to buy a printer, it is better to have a popular printer which the OS provides driver for. Otherwise you may face printer driver problem soon or later. It is good habbit to check the manufactur website for drivers before buying a new one.
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