New PPD keywords available in Mac OS X version 10.3

Q: What new PPD keywords are available for CUPS filters to use in Mac OS X version 10.3?

A: Starting with Mac OS X version 10.3 (Panther), the printing system supports four new PostScript Printer Description (PPD) keywords that printer vendors can use to specify several new options.

  • APDialogExtension - specifies a PDE (Printing Dialog Extension) to load

  • APPrinterUtilityPath - specifies a printer configuration utility for the user

  • APPrinterIconPath - specifies a custom icon

  • cupsICCProfile - specifies a ColorSync profile(s) for the printer

The new keys provide a way for developers to specify Printing Dialog Extensions (PDEs), a configuration utility, a custom icon, and ColorSync profiles for use with their PPD.

IMPORTANT: In all cases, the keyword value is a path name, not a URL. In most cases, the path must start with /Library/Printers/. The path must be enclosed in double quotes, which helps if there are space characters in any directory name. We strongly encourage printer vendors to store plug-ins and resources within a directory that is their vendor name. For example, we already have /Library/Printers/hp/ and /Library/Printers/Lexmark/. Inside the vendor directory, it's a good idea to organize your plug-ins and resources in a consistent fashion based on the following examples. In these examples, the vendor is called "Foo".

Printing Dialog Extensions (PDEs)

A PPD can specify one or more PDEs to load in the Print dialog by adding the following key, one per PDE:

*APDialogExtension: "Library/Printers/Foo/PDEs/FinishingOptions.plugin"

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Printer Configuration Utility

A PPD can specify an appropriate printer utility by adding a line specifying the full path to the utility as follows:

*APPrinterUtilityPath: "/Library/Printers/Foo/Printer Utility/Utility.app"

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Custom Printer Icons

A PPD can specify the location of a printer icon in a PPD file as follows:

*APPrinterIconPath: "/Library/Printers/Foo/Printer Icons/modelA.icns"

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ColorSync Profiles

A PPD can specify ColorSync profiles to be associated to the PPD. The system will load and register the profiles when the printer queue is created. The profiles would then be used by the system at various times including PDF document spooling, during the printing of remotely queued print jobs, and so forth. Each profile is specified by a line in the PPD in the following form:

*cupsICCProfile ColorModel.MediaType.Resolution/Mode: "profile_location"

where the qualifier ColorModel is one of your PPD's ColorModel option values, the MediaType qualifier is one of the available MediaType option values and the Resolution qualifier is one of the available resolutions. If any of the qualifiers are missing, the PPD file will treat the missing qualifier as a wildcard value and will match the profile for ALL possible values of the missing qualifier. Mode is a human-readable string that will appear in the ColorSync Utility. The profile_location is either an absolute or relative path to the icc file. If a relative path is used, the path will be relative to /usr/share/cups/profiles/. The ColorSync Utility is the best tool to verify that your printer profiles have been correctly registered.

Here are a few examples:

(1)

*cupsICCProfile CMYK.Photo.600x600dpi/LoResPhoto CMYK Profile: "Foo/LoResPhotoCMYK.icc"

specifies a CMYK profile to use when the selected ColorModel is CMYK, printing to a MediaType called "Photo" and at "600x600dpi" Resolution mode. A relative path was given for the profile location, therefore the profile is located at /usr/share/cups/profiles/Foo/.

(2)

*cupsICCProfile CMYK..600x600dpi/LoRes CMYK Profile: "Foo/LoRes CMYK Profile.icc"

specifies a CMYK profile to use when the selected ColorModel is CMYK, printing to ALL possible MediaType values and at "600x600dpi" Resolution mode.

(3)

If you would like to match color profiles only by ColorModel values, your PPD file may have the following:

*cupsICCProfile Gray../Gray Profile: "/Library/Printers/Foo/Profiles/Test Gray Pro.icc"
*cupsICCProfile CMYK../CMYK Profile: "/Library/Printers/Foo/Profiles/TestCMYKPro.icc"

specifies a CMYK profile for when the selected ColorModel is CMYK, printing to a MediaType called "Photo" and at "600x600dpi" Resolution mode.

(4)

Profile matching in the PPD file is done by matching the following qualifiers :ColorModel, MediaType, and Resolution from the most specific to the least. Therefore, if examples 1-3 were the ONLY cupsICCProfile lines included in the same PPD file, the PPD file will match profiles in the following manner:

  • 1. (LoResPhotoCMYK.icc) is the profile used if the print job options are CMYK, Photo, and 600x600dpi.

  • 2. (LoRes CMYK Profile.icc) is used if the print job options are CMYK, any other media type, and 600x600dpi.

  • 3. (TestCMYKPro.icc ) is used if the print job options are any other CMYK color model print job.

  • 4. (Test Gray Pro.icc) is used if the print job option has Gray as the color model, regardless of the other options.

(5)

The default qualifiers are ColorModel, MediaType, and Resolution, in that order. Developers have the option of changing the second and third qualifiers that would replace the default values. To indicate an alternative to MediaType, a PPD needs to use the cupsICCQualifier2 keyword. To indicate an alternative to Resolution, the cupsICCQualifier3 keyword is used. For example, if you would like to use the OutputMode keyword instead of Resolution to change the third qualifier, you would set the value of the cupsICCQualifier3 keyword to OutputMode. For example:

*cupsICCQualifier3: OutputMode

If the cupsICCQualifier3 keyword did not exist, the result in the PPD file would have been equivalent to:

*cupsICCQualifier3: Resolution

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CUPS Filter

As a reminder, Mac OS X 10.3 also supports the CUPS filter PPD keyword that allows the specification of a CUPS filter to run when the PPD is used.

To specify a CUPS filter use for PostScript, the vendor 'Foo' might use the following line:

*cupsFilter: "application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 /Library/Printers/Foo/filter/foopstops"

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References

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Document Revision History

DateNotes
2004-05-26Describes the new PPD keywords available for CUPS filters in Mac OS X 10.3.

Posted: 2004-05-26

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