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Does This Printer Support PostScript?

Q: I am trying to find a way for my application to determine if it is using a Postscript printer or not. For performance reasons, I'd like to send custom PostScript instead of a PICT to the printer if I can. Is there an API to find out if the currently selected printer uses PostScript?

A: There is no guaranteed way of doing this. For Apple's LaserWriters, you can determine this by looking at the wDev field in the print record of the currently selected printer. In order to determine whether the current printer is PostScript, here is a quote that is hidden in one of our older Technotes, Technote QD10 "Picture Comments--The Real Deal":


"The high byte of the prStl.wDev field of the print record identifies a printer driver species; a value of $03 tells you that the printer driver belongs to the PostScript LaserWriter driver ancestry..."


This Technote may be useful to you if you haven't already read it. You should also look at Inside Macintosh: Imaging With QuickDraw for more generic information on the print record.

However, although the Apple LaserWriter driver has a wDev of 3, third-party printer drivers for PostScript devices do not, so if your application determines whether or not to send PostScript based on wDev alone, your application may incorrectly print with QuickDraw on third-party PostScript devices.

[Jan 09 1997]

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