Laser printers supporting PCL and PDF natively

[jbasedata]

I have developed a jBASE/Temenos (Pick database) application to generate PCL output with logos and other graphical content, and also written PDF output as an option, although the PDF is primarily for sending via e-mail.

However, I've begun to see that many new laser printers offer native PDF support, which adds another option for us.

Is there a good reason to continue developing PCL output, now that PDFs can be supported natively?

 

[carlmcg]

The only compelling reason I can give off the top of my head is "instant printing", where a PCL job can be spooling immediately but a PDF job may have to wait for the entire job.

 

[jbasedata]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I see what you mean. I must admit, the PDF project was moderately more difficult to programme (at least for me anyway), because the way in which PDF objects reference each other took me some time to understand. But now I've completed both sets of software and they are working, it has left me wondering whether I'd be doing the end-user customer a better service if I concentrate my future efforts on PDF.

I found with PDF that JPEG images can be dropped into the file as an object, without needing to do anything to them, whereas for PCL the graphic needs to be converted into raster. Furthermore, the PCL tool that converts JPG images into PCL raster graphics only translates into a monochrome raster, whereas PDF is impartial whether the image object is color or monochrome.