Lukas Beeler's IT Blog

When installing network printers, you usually have a wide variety of available drivers to choose from. PCL, PCL5, PCL6, PCLXL, PS2, PS3, WHQL, not WHQL, etc.

But which is the right one? The answer is usually “it depends”.

In General, WHQL certified drivers have less features, and do not offer the same graphic representation pictures usually found in normal Vendor drivers – this differs from vendor to vendor though, some invest more time into their WHQL drivers than others do. I usually prefer WHQL drivers, if they look halfway decent (GUI perspective). They are updated a lot less, and usually cause less issues.

But this is just the first step toward choosing the correct printer drivers, because you also have to choose the print language used. Most modern network printers support PCL5, PCL6 (which is the same as PCLXL) and PS3. PCL6 and PCL5 are relativly different languages, which is why PCL6 is not downward compatible – i’ve never seen a PCL6 printer which didn’t support PCL5, but they may exist. Usually, the PCL emulation of SOHO/Workgroup printers works better than their Postscript counterpart. Which is why i try the PCL drivers first, and if they don’t do what they should i will fallback to the PS3 ones.

Many vendors have PCL6 drivers which aren’t feature complete yet, and their PCL5 drivers are usually superior – also a very interesting point. In some cases, i had to use both PCL and PS drivers to get correct output – some Programs wouldn’t work correctly with the first, others not with the second. This was with an InfoPrint 1220, where Lexmark is the OEM.

I usually check the PCL5/WHQL driver first before trying the other drivers. Remember that the featureset offered between those drivers may vary, and if you’re in need of a special feature you will have to look at all of the combinations.

When you’re buying cheap SOHO/Workplace printers, you might have encountered printers that support both Host-Based printing and PCL as input options. These printers usually have a very slow CPU, and the PCL input support is for supporting Linux or other operating systems where the manufacturer doesn’t provide direct support. This is why the Host-Based driver usually produces the better results, and prints faster (if your CPU is fast enough). I’ve seen this combination on some HP Workplace b/w laser printers