Editing Graphics Device Interface (section)

== GDI printers ==
A GDI printer or '''Winprinter''' (analogous to a [[Winmodem]]) is a printer designed to accept output from a host computer running Windows. The host computer does all print processing: GDI renders a page as a bitmap, which the [[printer driver]] receives, processes, and sends to the associated printer.<ref name="linuxprinting">{{cite web|title=Generic GDI Printer|url=https://www.openprinting.org/printer/Generic/Generic-GDI_Printer|access-date=21 July 2021|website=Open Printing|publisher=The Linux Foundation}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Windows-only printers |url=https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Printing-HOWTO/winprinters.html |publisher=[[Linux Documentation Project]] |access-date=October 29, 2019}}</ref>  The combination of GDI and the driver is bidirectional; they receive information from the printer such as whether it is ready to print or is out of paper.

Printers that do not rely on GDI require hardware, firmware, and memory for page rendering while a GDI printer uses the host computer for this. However, a printer with its own control language can accept input from any device with a suitable driver, while a GDI printer requires a PC running Windows. GDI printers can be made available to computers on a network if they are connected as shared printers on a computer which is on and running Windows. Some "generic" GDI drivers such as <code>pnm2ppa</code> have been written; they aim to make GDI printers compatible with non-Windows operating systems such as [[FreeBSD]], but they cannot support all printers.<ref name="linuxprinting" />

In order to allow simpler creation of drivers for Winprinters, the [[Microsoft Universal Printer Driver]] was created. This allows printer vendors to write Generic Printer Description (GPD) "minidrivers", which describe the printer's capabilities and command set in plaintext, rather than having to do kernel mode driver development.

Microsoft has moved away from this printing model with [[Open XML Paper Specification]].