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The Color printer
driver is designed
for developers and end users to build document imaging, e-commerce,
archiving, faxing, or raster image capturing applications by
converting any printable file into a supported image format. The Color
driver is based entirely on Black Ice Printer Driver technology
which has been in use since 1989, and is not based on Microsoft
Mini-driver technology.
Every Color printer
driver purchased includes a Free Resource
ToolKit, to easily
integrate the Color printer driver into the developed application.
Features of the
Color printer driver.
Supported operating
systems:
-
Windows Millennium
-
Windows 98
-
Windows 95
The
Color printer driver
features are grouped into the following main parts.
Each of the above
feature groups' settings can be changed from the Color printer
driver's
Printing Preferences dialog.
The Device Settings
84
Available Paper Sizes
The
Color printer driver
supports a total of 84 different paper sizes.
-
45 standard paper (page) sizes
are supported.
-
36 Advanced paper sizes are supported,
including the A0 Engineering paper size.
-
3 Black Ice paper sizes, such as
User-selectable variable (custom) paper size
specified in inches or millimeters, fax paper size and variable
paper size in pixels.
Force
Fax Resolution
Select this option to force the
Color printer driver to generate faxable images, regardless of the settings of
the printing application. Faxable images must have 204x98 or 204x196
DPI resolution and must have a 1728 pixel width. The Black Ice Printer
will generate the output image with the required parameters, therefore
no further modification of the image will be necessary in order
to fax the image.
Page
Orientation
Besides the traditional
Portrait and Landscape orientations, Black Ice printers support
the "Rotate landscape image to portrait" option too. This
feature is very handy when landscape oriented documents need to
be faxed.
By using this option, the document
will be printed using the landscape orientation and then the image
will be rotated to portrait orientation and is ready to be faxed.
Graphic resolutions
The Black Ice
Color printer drivers support for the following resolutions:
-
100 x 100 DPI
-
200 x 200 DPI
-
204 x 98 DPI - the Standard FAX
mode (Draft)
-
204 x 196 DPI - the Fine FAX mode
(Low)
-
300 x 300 DPI
-
600 x 600 DPI
-
Custom resolution
- up to 1500x1500 DPI
The custom resolution can be set to
any value ( horizontal and vertical ) up to 1500 x 1500 DPI and
not less then 50 x 50 DPI
File Formats
Settings
Use these settings
to specify the output file format for the Color printer driver to generate.
The printed documents will be converted to images which will be
stored in the selected format
File Format
Printed documents
can be converted into the following formats:
Color Depth
The
Color printer driver
can convert the printed documents into 24 bit (true color), 8 bit
(256 color or grayscale) or 1 bit (monochrome) images.
Multipage file support
The Black Ice
Color printer driver can convert multipage documents in one of two ways: by generating
one separate image file for each page, or by generating one single
multipage TIFF or DCX file. Using the multipage file support,
all pages from the source document will be stored in the same image
file.
Write text file
- Extract text output
If the source document
contains text information, the Color printer driver can extract and save
the text from the document in a separate text file in addition to
creating the image file(s).
Click Here for additional text extraction information.
Save position and
style - for text output
This powerful feature
allows exact reconstruction of a document. When this option is selected,
the exact position of the text and the font information from the
source document will be saved in a text file.
Mail Merge
The mail merge feature
is available in the Color printer driver, call for details
Photo Quality (Dithering)
In order to convert
color documents into monochrome (black and white) or 8 bit (256
color) images, several dithering methods are available and can be
used. The Color printer driver support seven different dithering
methods.
The size and appearance of the generated
image will vary depending on which dithering method is used.
Filename Generation
Settings
The Filename generation
settings allow the name of the generated images to be specified.
The Black Ice Color printer driver supports seven different filename generation
methods:
These filename generation methods provide
huge flexibility to the application which integrates the Color
printer driver.
-
Use the prefix and extension:
the output filename will be generated from random characters.
The first three characters will be the characters specified in
the ‘Filename Prefix’ edit box and random numbers
will be added.
-
Prefix and extension from
the registry:
The file name prefix and the extension will be read from the specified
registry key.
-
Prefix and extension from
the INI file:
In this case the filename and the prefix will be read from the
specified INI file. The driver will search in the INI file for
a printer name section. Use the “File Name Prefix"
key for the file prefix and the “File Name extension"
key for the extension.
-
Exact filename:
The printed file will be generated with the exact name as specified
in the ‘Enter the filename’ edit box.
-
Exact filename from the
registry:
The filename will be read from the specified registry key.
-
Exact filename from the
INI file:
In this case the filename will be read from the specified INI
file.
-
Use the document name:
The driver will use the document name which the application passes
to the driver when generating the name of the output image.
Output
Directory
The
Color printer driver will generate the image file(s) in the specified
folder. This folder can be on the local hard drive, can be a mapped
network drive, or it can be a folder on another computer.
Group
File Options
For
every print job (printed document) the Color printer driver creates a
"group file". The group file contains information about
the generated image, including the name of the document, the full
path and file name for each page, the image format, color depth,
paper size, orientation, and printing status.
Delete
the group file after printing - The Color printer driver will
automatically delete the group file at the end of the printing.
Applications can still use the information from the group file during
printing.
Disable group file generation - If it is not needed,
the group file generation can be turned off.
Start
Application Settings
One
of the features of the Black Ice Color printer drivers is that the printer
driver can start an application before or after printing. If the
application is started before the printing starts, the applications
can wait for the messages sent by the printer driver. When the application
is started after the printing has finished, a custom application
can read the command line parameters of the generated group file,
which will contain all of the necessary information about the generated
images.
Watermark
Settings
Add
a watermark image to every printed document using the Print Watermark
feature of the Black Ice Color printer drivers. The selected image (your
company logo, signature, etc.) will show up automatically on the
generated images.
-
Watermark image file:
If needed, two different watermark images can be specified for
portrait and landscape orientation images.
-
Position: The watermark
can be placed on the document using four options:
-
Brightness: controls
the visibility of the watermark image on the original document.
The watermark is always in the background,
so the document's text and images are clearly visible.
Embedded Annotation
Settings
It is possible to define a custom annotation text that will be placed
on every printed page. The annotation text can also contain the
current date and/or the time. The format of the date and time, the
position of the annotation text on the page, and the font used to
print the annotation can be fully customized. The Black
Ice Color printer drivers can also add user specific annotations such
as the printing user name, computer name, IP Address, etc. which
can be specified using predefined fields and environment variables.
Advanced
features and technologies
Black Ice
Color printer drivers support several features and technologies that no other
printer driver vendor supports. In order to make use of these technologies,
there are several applications included in the Resource
Toolkit that demonstrate these features.
The following list
enumerates these Black Ice specific technologies. Please click on
the links below to get more information about these features.
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Color Printer Drivers for Windows ME/98/95 |
