{"id":54,"date":"2021-02-18T12:02:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T11:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newblog.colorgate.com\/en\/2021\/02\/18\/2368-how-to-use-our-universal-drivers-windows-printer-color-copier-and-color-copier-gdi\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T15:29:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T14:29:33","slug":"2368-how-to-use-our-universal-drivers-windows-printer-color-copier-and-color-copier-gdi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/2368-how-to-use-our-universal-drivers-windows-printer-color-copier-and-color-copier-gdi\/","title":{"rendered":"How to use our universal drivers: Windows Printer, Color Copier and Color Copier GDI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At ColorGATE, we are proud to be able to support digital printing systems from a wide range of manufacturers in our products, with over 1,700 drivers currently available. However, there are still cases where it is not possible to integrate a dedicated driver for a particular printer. For many lower-priced printers, the manufacturers do not intend for these to be controlled directly via RIP software; and given the large number of toner-based A4\/A3 printers, it makes sense to offer only universal drivers for these in many cases. Fortunately, it is common for these kinds of printers to be controlled directly from Windows, so that you can print from any application. This is something we can take advantage of. This article explains how you can use our universal drivers to control printers without dedicated drivers in Productionserver or Proofgate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Our universal drivers allow you to take advantage of the automation and color management benefits that our products offer, while retaining the wide array of settings available in the Windows drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, I will explain the three drivers Color Copier, Color Copier GDI and Windows Printer in more detail, providing one example for each driver. Please note that the drivers of course must be available in your license for you to be able to use them. It is possible to have them enabled on a trial basis. For more information, please contact us at contact@colorgate.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windows Printer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With the \u201cWindows Printer\u201d driver, you can control basically any printer that is installed locally and listed under \u201cPrinters & Scanners\u201d in Windows. For toner-based printers, however, we would rather recommend the Color Copier driver as it offers more customized features (more on this later).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this example, we will use an Epson SC-P700. However, the general procedure is identical for other printers. First, of course, the appropriate Windows driver from Epson must be installed. You should also test immediately whether, for example, the test page from the Windows driver can be output successfully. If there should already be problems here, you will probably not have any more success in Productionserver or Proofgate\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our software, you must now launch the printer setup wizard (\u201cPrinter\u201d->\u201dNew\u2026\u201d). There, select the manufacturer \u201c***ColorGATE***\u201d and then the \u201cColorGATE Windows Printer\u201d. By clicking \u201cNext >\u201d twice, you will get to the \u201cPrinter port\u201d step. Here, all installed local printers should be listed in the combo box below \u201cWindows Driver\u201d. Just select the printer you want to connect to. In this example I choose the Epson SC-P700.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Follow the wizard until you reach the \u201cAdvanced settings\u201d step, then close it by clicking \u201cFinish\u201d. Now go to \u201cPrinter\u201d -> \u201cProperties\u201d and select the \u201cHotfolder\u201d step. Make sure that a hotfolder is selected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Click on \u201cSettings\u201d to open the settings of the hotfolder. There you can define default settings for jobs that are loaded into that hotfolder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The media sizes that are available in Windows should have been imported to the \u201cMedia Sizes\u201d dropdown menu in the \u201cPrinter\u201d tab of the settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You can use the \u201c\u2026\u201d menu to the right of the drop-down menu if you want to add custom media sizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most important settings are made in the \u201cColor\u201d tab via the \u201cSettings\u2026\u201d button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Select the \u201cPrint Mode\u201d tab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here you see at first clearly less options than with \u201cnormal\u201d drivers within our products, because most of them are hidden behind the \u201cPrinter Properties\u2026\u201d button. The checkbox \u201cSend data in BGR order (blue, green, red)\u201d can be useful if the color channels should be swapped during output. The available color modes are CMYK and RGB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you click the \u201cPrinter Properties\u2026\u201d button, the Windows driver dialog will open:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The media size should have been inherited from the settings in the \u201cPrinter\u201d tab, although there may be printer drivers where you need to correct it manually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the Productionserver should handle the color management, you should deactivate all settings related to this in the driver settings (in this case, select \u201cMode\u201d->\u201dOff (No Color Correction)\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this example, you use the \u201cMedium\u201d, \u201cColor\u201d and \u201cQuality\u201d settings to select the print mode, that is, which resolution and how many passes will be printed, as well as similar printer-specific settings. These dialogs and naming conventions might be completely different for other printers. Usually, the documentation of the manufacturer can help you out with further information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you exit the Windows driver dialog by clicking \u201cOK\u201d, the settings are saved. The settings can be managed via MIM combinations, just as when you are using \u201cnormal\u201d dedicated printer drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep in mind that using the manufacturer\u2019s windows driver may cause problems, for example if the printer manufacturer implements major changes to the driver. In addition, uninstalling the Windows driver used will of course cause problems. If you want to use MIM combinations on more than one PC, you should also make sure to use the same version of the same Windows driver if possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Color Copier<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The setup of the \u201cColor Copier\u201d driver is very similar to that of the \u201cWindows Printer\u201d driver. Therefore, I will only describe the differences here. The \u201cColor Copier\u201d driver requires that the device to be controlled has a PostScript driver. In the case of toner printers, it is often the case that both a \u201cPCL\u201d and a \u201cPS\u201d driver are offered by the manufacturer. For the \u201cColor Copier\u201d the PS driver is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the following example I want to use an OKI Pro7411WT. Compared to the \u201cWindows Printer\u201d driver, the \u201cColor Copier\u201d driver offers additional functions in the \u201cPrinter\u201d tab that are helpful for toner printers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, the margins of the job can be used and a paper size can be selected automatically. On the other hand, media can be hidden via the \u201c\u2026\u201d button to make the list more manageable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the \u201cJob\u201d tab it is also possible to have the printer generate multiple output, i.e. instead of sending a page 10x to the printer, the printer is told to output the page 10x. This saves time when sending the print data and should also increase the processing speed at the printer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are also two additional options in the \u201cPrint Mode\u201d tab: First, you can reduce the RIP resolution to reduce the amount of data at the expense of quality, and second, there is the option to send each page as a single document. Only CMYK is available as the color mode here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cPrinter Properties\u2026\u201d button brings you back to the printer driver dialog:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The handling here is very similar to the Windows Driver (i.e. the color management should be deactivated again as far as possible) and depends on the printer you are using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, you can of course manage your settings via hotfolders and MIM combinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with the Windows Printer, it is best not to replace the installed Windows driver if you are using the Color Copier, and it is recommended to check the settings after updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Color Copier GDI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Color Copier GDI is a combination of the Windows Printer and the Color Copier. It does not need a Postscript driver, but offers the \u201cAuto choose paper size\u201d option and the option to hide media sizes in the \u201cPrinter\u201d tab. Color modes available here are CMYK and RGB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If you have the choice, you should always use dedicated printer drivers for your printers (see our list of Supported Devices<\/a>), but the universal drivers described above are in many cases a good alternative for yet unsupported devices that allow you to still benefit from other features of our software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For printers that do not have a Windows driver, but can be controlled via standard file formats like TIFF\/PDF ( for example via another intermediary software) we will be provide another article in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At ColorGATE, we are proud to be able to support digital printing systems from a wide range of manufacturers in our products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[70,5,73,74],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein","tag-drivers","tag-knowledge-base","tag-universal-drivers","tag-version-20"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":453,"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.colorgate.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}