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Installing a PCL XL Minidriver

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Important

The modern print platform is Windows' preferred means of communicating with printers. We recommend that you use Microsoft's IPP inbox class driver, along with Print Support Apps (PSA), to customize the print experience in Windows 10 and 11 for printer device development.

For more information, see Modern print platform and the Print support app design guide.

In Windows XP and later, ntprint.inf has the following [PCLXL.OEM] section:

[PCLXL.OEM]
CopyFiles=PCLXL,@PCL5ERES.DLL

The INF CopyFiles directive copies all of the files listed in the [PCLXL] section, as well as pcl5eres.dll, to the default destination directory. The [PCLXL] section also appears in ntprint.inf and lists the files to be copied.

[PCLXL]
PCLXL.DLL
PCLXL.GPD
P6FONT.GPD
PJL.GPD
P6DISP.GPD

Pclxl.dll contains the PCL XL UFMs and various resource strings. The other GPDs listed in this section are the PCL XL (PCL-6) support files.

To install a PCL XL printer minidriver, an OEM should add a section similar to the following in the printer-specific INF. This INF loads before ntprint.inf does.

[P6SAMPLE.GPD]
CopyFiles=@P6SAMPLE.GPD
DataSection=UNIDRV_DATA
DataFile=P6SAMPLE.GPD
Include=NTPRINT.INF
Needs=UNIDRV.OEM,TTFSUB.OEM,PCLXL.OEM

In the preceding section, the CopyFiles directive in the first line copies the OEM's GPD file (called p6sample.gpd in this example). The entry associated with the DataSection directive in the second line (see Printer INF File Data Sections and Printer INF File Install Sections) refers to the [UNIDRV_DATA] section in ntprint.inf. The DataFile directive in the third line specifies that p6sample.gpd is the data file associated with this printer minidriver. The fourth line causes ntprint.inf to be included. The three entries in the Needs directive of the fifth line refer to the identically-named sections in ntprint.inf. This enables the INF file to gain access to the files that it loads in driver.cab.

For additional information about using the CopyFiles directive for printer installations, see Printer INF File CopyFiles Sections.