Universal printer driver already available

In ep 1117, you talked about Google working with printer makers to develop a standardized printer driver. But one already exists that works with any computer and hundreds of professional grade printers and output devices. It's called Postscript.

Now I'm not a printer expert, but as I udnerstand it, there are a couple reasons you don't see PostScript in consumer level printers. I think the biggest one is that it requires a fair amount of processing power on the printer itself to convert the language that comes from the computer into something the printer's on-board engine can use to spit ink onto paper.

Various brands and models of printers work differently and will necessarily require a different format for the data at some point in the process. With postscript, that translation from screen to paper happens in the printer's CPU. But to sell a printer for $50, HP can't afford to put a real CPU in it, so they offload that translation duty to your computer's CPU. That's what the driver does, and that's why every printer and every computer needs a different driver; because printers are "dumb" now.

One big standard now, which replaced PostScript in the comsumer market is HP's PCL. Your printer driver converts your print job into PCL and sends it to a compliant printer. I'm speculating a bit here, but I think that because of all the different versions and quirks of PCL, application writers don't want to build PCL translation directly into their apps. Instead they rely on the printer makers to write a driver that does it for them. That way it's easier to make sure the output works correctly on each printer.