Should I use Postscript or PCL?

  • Thread starter Thread starter MarkW
  • Start date Start date
M

MarkW

I just bought a large b/w printer and am hooking it up to my computer
network. I have the choice of two drives, PCL or Postscript. The
question, which one should I use? In case it makes a difference the
use varies widely for this printer. We do a lot of printing from
Office (Word and Excel mostly) and as well will be doing a lot of
desktop publishing (mostly from Adobe InDesign and other Adobe
Products) and as well at times it will be used for printing pictures.
Thanks for any help.
 
MarkW said:
I just bought a large b/w printer and am hooking it up to
my computer network. I have the choice of two drives,
PCL or Postscript.
Click to expand...

I presume by "drives" you mean "drivers", specifically
Windows drivers, and/or perhaps Mac.
The question, which one should I use?
Click to expand...

Both. I always install both.

Assuming a demographic demarcation here ...
Default the MS/Office users to the PCL "printer".
Default the Adobe users to the PS model.

Teach both groups how to select the other printer
model if they run into issues with:
- printer config (duplex, halftone, scaling, N-up)
- performance (PDF may be faster to "PS" printers)
- rendering results, particularly on images
 
MarkW said:
I just bought a large b/w printer and am hooking it up to my computer
network. I have the choice of two drives, PCL or Postscript.
Click to expand...

Horses for courses...

The
question, which one should I use?
Click to expand...

Whichever has least bugs for your purposes.

If neither have significant bugs, then whichever is quicker !

In case it makes a difference the
use varies widely for this printer. We do a lot of printing from
Office (Word and Excel mostly)
Click to expand...

OK, I default that to PCL. Office generates hugely inefficient
postscript.

and as well will be doing a lot of
desktop publishing (mostly from Adobe InDesign and other Adobe
Products)
Click to expand...

Sympathies.

With enough memory Pagemaker 6.5 is OK. PM7 might actually be better ?

In design we gave up on after 1.5, but in my experienve, 1.5 was quick
with PCL but wouldn't print full duplex to out HPLJ2M+. For that we had
to use PS, and that was well slow...

and as well at times it will be used for printing pictures.
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...

Yes. That's mostly what made out postscript slow.


Cheers, J/.
 
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