Printer Command Language Format (PCL)

The Printer Command Language vector format was developed by Hewlett-Packard, specifically to provide a means of communication between computers and printers. The PCL files contain the commands and the HP printers parse and decode those commands. This format also includes HPGL. For more information about HPGL, refer to PLT.

This file format is not supported in the non-vector toolkits. Read support and write support for this format are provided in the LEADTOOLS Vector toolkits and are unlocked when the Vector features are unlocked. For more information on available LEADTOOLS products, refer to Topic Selection or contact LEAD.

LEAD supports version 3.0 and 5.0 of this file format.

The default extensions used by this format are: PRN, PRT and PCL.

This format is used by Visual PCL, PCLTOOLS, redtitan EscapE and AutoVue.

This file format does not support layers or grouping, but it does support embedded raster objects.

PCL filter supports many features such as:

Support for Raster, text and rectangular area.

Support for Macros.

Enhanced performance of the filter.

Support for HPGL mode in PCL

Raster fonts

RTL Raster data

Support for all compression methods (RLE, TIFF, Delta, Adaptive and Unencoded).

Support for old versions of PCL v.3, besides v.5.

Viewing PJL with POSTSCRIPT data (requires the PDF filter)

Support for user-defined and pre-defined patterns

Support for Unicode symbols

Detecting non-standard PCL/HPGL files that lack a correct header

File constants associated with this file format are:

When PCL files are rasterized, they are 24 BPP.
When PLT files are rasterized, they are 4 BPP.

The following table indicates which objects LEAD can load and which objects it can save:

Required DLL: LFPCL. For a listing of the exact DLLs needed, based on the toolkit version, refer to Files To Be Included With Your Application.

Related Formats: CGM - Computer Graphics Metafile, CMX - Corel Presentation Exchange Format, DGN - Intergraph Format, DRW - Micrografx Designer DRaWing, DWF - DWF Format, DWG - DWG Format, DXF - Drawing Interchange Format, EMF - Windows Metafile Formats, GBR - Gerber Format, PCT - Macintosh Pict Format, PDF - Portable Document Format, PLT - PLT / HPGL Format, PS - PostScript Document Format, RTF - Rich Text Format, SHP - ESRI Shape Format, SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics Format, VEC - LEADTOOLS Vector Dump Format, VPG - WordPerfect Vector Format, WMF - Windows Metafile Formats, WMZ - Compressed Windows Metafile Format.