PPD Files

During a recent printer deploy project, I had two requirements that I had some difficulty resolving: (a) color control for Xerox printers for both Windows and Mac; and (b) permanently disabling banner sheets.

The specific configuration was that all print jobs are sent through a Windows print server, serving Windows natively and Mac through Unix services Line Printer Daemon (LPD).

For Windows, I was able to control the color output and banner pages through features in the driver configuration on the server, which propagated to all Windows machines. Obviously, this propagation does not happen for LPD on a Mac. Even if the specific queue in Windows is set to BW only and no banner, a color job from a Mac still produces color and the banner is still produced.

The resolution? Modify the Mac PPD for each print queue.

PPD?

A PPD is a PostScript Printer Definition, a text based configuration file that defines the scope of the printer, such as the capabilities, defaults and restrictions.

Since PPD files are based on PostScript, how a PPD is defined is determined by Adobe. Please visit the following link for more information: http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5003.PPD_Spec_v4.3.pdf

Xerox PPD and Color Control

The Xerox printer driver for Mac has a PPD that defines that printer. Inside the PPD I modified two lines to disable color output:

*ColorDevice: False
*DefaultColorSpace: Gray

Although I changed both, it was only at the time that I changed the DefaultColorSpace that the color output stopped. Even though the Mac user still has the option to specify color at print time, the output will remain BW.

Xerox PPD and Banner Page

In the same PPD, I modified one tag that permanently removed banner pages:

*DefaultJCLBanner: False

PPD Location

In the Mac environment, custom English PPD files are located in:
\Hard Drive\Library\Printers\PPDs\Contents\Resources\en.lproj

To copy files in to this folder you will need to authenticate using a username with Admin permissions.

All tag information, such as * DefaultJCLBanner, is in the document provided by Adobe, as was provided above.