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Locating ICC Profiles

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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.

When color management is enabled, GDI searches for an appropriate ICC profile, using the following steps:

  1. If the driver's printer interface DLL provides a DrvQueryColorProfile function, the GDI client calls the function to give the driver an opportunity to specify a profile. If the function returns a profile, it is used.

  2. If DrvQueryColorProfile does not exist or does not return a profile, GDI searches the color directory for profiles that have been installed for the specified printer type. GDI uses the first profile it finds that matches resolution, media type, and dithering settings in the DEVMODE structure.

  3. If the color directory does not contain any profiles for the specified printer type that match the specified DEVMODE contents, GDI uses the system's default sRGB profile.

For more information, see Installing ICC Profiles. Additional information about ICC profiles can be found in the Microsoft Windows SDK documentation.