formatting by printer drivers considered harmful

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax (More info?)

Interesting point of view. Obviously, not everyone agrees with you. Adobe
and Scansoft, and developers of "pseudo-printer" fax drivers, for example.

You might get more information/comment by posting to
microsoft.public.development.device.drivers or
microsoft.public.windowsxp.device_driver.dev

Tom
MSMVP-DTS



"API police" <nonExist@spamless.com> wrote in message
news:uJpdWV9dEHA.3632@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
>I have recently had to take over support for printing in an application. I
> didn't have a clue about this area a couple of weeks ago. However, now, I
> am
> starting to form the distinct impression that most of the difficult
> questions surrounding printing don't have anything to do with 'printing',
> per se, at all. It seems there are many printer drivers out there that
> don't
> actually drive printers. Instead, some clever programmer recognized that
> almost all applications support printing, so why not write printer drivers
> that output files formatted as HTML, or PDF or something? This way,
> applications that weren't designed to produce HTML or PDF or whatever in
> the
> first place will now have this ability.
>
> This is pathological in my view. The application doesn't have any real
> control over the output. And yet users somehow get it in their heads that
> the application *should*. They request enhancements or customizations that
> are impossible.
>
> The correct way to modularize formatting support, I think, is illustrated
> by
> the XEP rendering engine http://xep.xattic.com/xep/index.html for example.
>
> Are there any trade articles or antipattern descriptions, or
> patterns-and-practices guides, or Windows logo guidelines out there that
> discourage this horrible practice of formatting via printer drivers?
>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax (More info?)

Glad I could help.

I don't know if they consider their "solutions" best practice but they seem
to have no hesitation in selling the products for their various intended
purposes,

Tom
MSMVP-DTS

"API police" <nonExist@spamless.com> wrote in message
newsfYRuIOeEHA.2352@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> No, obviously not. But I wonder if any one of them would tout their
> solution
> as a 'best practice'. Thanks for the pointers to better newsgroups.
>
> "Thomas Ferguson" <tomf@mvps.org> wrote in message
> news:%23MAP1pKeEHA.2812@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>> Interesting point of view. Obviously, not everyone agrees with you. Adobe
>> and Scansoft, and developers of "pseudo-printer" fax drivers, for
>> example.
>>
>> You might get more information/comment by posting to
>> microsoft.public.development.device.drivers or
>> microsoft.public.windowsxp.device_driver.dev
>>
>> Tom
>> MSMVP-DTS
>>
>>
>>
>> "API police" <nonExist@spamless.com> wrote in message
>> news:uJpdWV9dEHA.3632@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
>> >I have recently had to take over support for printing in an application.
> I
>> > didn't have a clue about this area a couple of weeks ago. However, now,
> I
>> > am
>> > starting to form the distinct impression that most of the difficult
>> > questions surrounding printing don't have anything to do with
> 'printing',
>> > per se, at all. It seems there are many printer drivers out there that
>> > don't
>> > actually drive printers. Instead, some clever programmer recognized
>> > that
>> > almost all applications support printing, so why not write printer
> drivers
>> > that output files formatted as HTML, or PDF or something? This way,
>> > applications that weren't designed to produce HTML or PDF or whatever
>> > in
>> > the
>> > first place will now have this ability.
>> >
>> > This is pathological in my view. The application doesn't have any real
>> > control over the output. And yet users somehow get it in their heads
> that
>> > the application *should*. They request enhancements or customizations
> that
>> > are impossible.
>> >
>> > The correct way to modularize formatting support, I think, is
> illustrated
>> > by
>> > the XEP rendering engine http://xep.xattic.com/xep/index.html for
> example.
>> >
>> > Are there any trade articles or antipattern descriptions, or
>> > patterns-and-practices guides, or Windows logo guidelines out there
>> > that
>> > discourage this horrible practice of formatting via printer drivers?
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>