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Important: This document is part of the Legacy section of the ADC Reference Library. This information should not be used for new development.

Current information on this Reference Library topic can be found here:

Paper Type Menu not Updated Often

Important for all Apple Printing and Graphics Developers:

The information in this Technical Q & A is still relevant up to and including Mac OS 7.6 with QuickDraw GX 1.1.5. Beginning with the release of Mac OS 8.0, however, Apple plans to deliver a system which incorporates QuickDraw GX graphics and typography only. QuickDraw GX printer drivers and GX printing extensions will not be supported in Mac OS 8.0 or in future Mac OS releases. Apple's goal is to simplify the user experience of printing by unifying the Macintosh graphic and printing architectures and standardizing on the classic Printing Manager.

For details on Apple's official announcement, refer to </dev/technotes/gxchange.html>

Q: The Paper Type menu doesn't seem to get updated as often as it should. I had planned to have the driver parse a PPD to create a DTP but this isn't working properly. The only apparent alternative for consistently showing the correct paper types is to create an application that parses a PPD and creates a new driver. What's wrong and how should I proceed?

A: The storing of paper types within desktop printer files is not yet fully supported in GX. Until it is, there are two possible solutions to your problem:

  1. Instead of putting the paper types in the DTP, have your driver create a stand-alone paper-type file in the extensions folder. To do this, create a resource file (type=uspt, creator=pted), and copy the needed resources into it. You can name the paper types so they are instructive, such as "ACME Printer 600 - Letter". Although these paper types would be available to all DTPs for your driver, GX will prompt the user if a paper mismatch error occur.
  2. As you suggested, you can create an application that parses a PPD and creates a new driver in each case. Be careful, however, to assign a unique creator type to each driver. With this approach, you can build in custom paper types, dialogs, code, and so on for each driver.

[May 01 1995]

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