Page description language Totally Explained

Everything about Page Description Language totally explained

A page description language (PDL) is a language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap. An overlapping term is printer control language, but it shouldn't be confused as referring solely to Hewlett-Packard's PCL. PostScript, one of the most noted page description languages, is a fully fledged programming language, but many PDLs are not complete enough to be considered a programming language. The markup language adaption of the PDL is the page description markup language. Page description languages are textual or binary data streams. In principle, the same data stream could be rendered multiple times to generate multiple copies of the same image. They are distinct from graphics APIs such as GDI and OpenGL that can be called by software to generate graphical output.

List

Various page description languages exist:

AFP, Advanced Function Presentation
CPCL, Comtec Printer Control Language (Zebra, Comtec)
Diablo
DVI, Device Independent
EPL, Eltron Programming Language
ESC/P, Epson Standard Code for Printers, simple language mainly used in dot matrix printers
ESC/P2, an expanded version of ESC/P
IPDS, Intelligent Printer Data Stream
KPDL, Kyocera Page Description Language
PPDS, Personal Printer Data Stream by IBM
Metacode, a Xerox print stream format used in their older high-speed printers
PDF, Portable Document Format by Adobe
PostScript
PCL, Printer Command Language by Hewlett-Packard
SPL, Samsung Printer Language, specifications are available at http://splix.ap2c.org/
SVG, an XML-based graphics description language primarily developed for the World Wide Web
XPS, XML Paper Specification introduced in Windows Vista
ZJS, Zenographics ZjStream Page Description Language
ZPL, Zebra Programming Language

Some of these languages are or have been made open standards. There are also other proprietary languages whose details are not publicly disclosed.

Further Information

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