Page description language explained

In digital printing, a page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap (or generally raster graphics). An overlapping term is printer control language, which includes Hewlett-Packard's Printer Command Language (PCL). PostScript is one of the most noted page description languages. The markup language adaptation of the PDL is the page description markup language.

Page description languages are text (human-readable) or binary data streams, usually intermixed with text or graphics to be printed. They are distinct from graphics application programming interfaces (APIs) such as GDI and OpenGL that can be called by software to generate graphical output.

Notable examples

Various page description languages exist:

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Driverless Printing Standards And their PDLS . OpenPrinting . en . 29 April 2022.
  2. Web site: White Paper - Canon imagePROGRAF PAGE DESCRIPTION LANGUAGES (PDLS). https://web.archive.org/web/20131228134307/http://www.cmrepro.com/documents/CanonUnderstandingPDLs.pdf. dead. 28 December 2013. Canon. 13 June 2013.
  3. Book: Honeywell, Inc. . DPL command Reference. 2021 . August 7, 2022.
  4. Web site: PDF format becomes ISO standard . 2015-02-02 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160303234754/http://www.iso.org/iso/news.htm?refid=Ref1141 . 2016-03-03 . dead .
  5. Web site: Croc. Aurélien. SPL Specifications. SpliX Drivers for your printer. Feb 26, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180407050923/http://splix.sourceforge.net/specs.html. April 7, 2018. dead.