3 ms·
Mostly cost. There are printers that have computers in them that know how to read PDF, the "networked" or "cloud" or "business" ones. But they all cost more --
by cbhl 6y ago
Mostly cost. There are printers that have computers in them that know how to read PDF, the "networked" or "cloud" or "business" ones. But they all cost more -- anywhere from $300 to $1000+.
The cheap ones just have some tiny microprocessor that knows how to read the proprietary bitmap sent from the computer, and rely on the host PC for font rendering etc.
(Rendering fonts and vectors from a PDF can get pretty expensive!)
- joosters 6y agoIt can't require too much processing, Postscript printers were a thing decades ago...
- barrkel 6y agoYou underestimate how much printer manufacturers would like to shave from their hardware costs. Besides, Postscript can be arbitrarily complex, and with modern PCs, PDFs may be similarly complex. Much easier to deal with that (both bugs and memory costs) in a driver which can be upgraded easily, rather than in firmware. Way back when, in the early days of laser printers, the computer wouldn't be able to keep up with the printer, and a decent printer had a faster CPU than the computer it was attached to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter#Hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter#Hardware - 12MHz CPU in the printer, attached to an 8MHz CPU in the Mac.
- jakear 6y agoIs there any accept-encoding type exchange? Whereby a printer can say “hey I can accept data/pdf, data/png, or data/proprietary-format-xyz? Then the OS checks what it can send, or downloads from some central store if it can’t match any.