Introduction to GPD files

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.

GPD files are used for creating Unidrv minidrivers. A Unidrv minidriver consists of a text-based generic printer description (GPD), which can be contained in one or more GPD files.

GPD files use the GPD language to describe a printer. The files contain GPD file entries that use the GPD language to provide the following types of information:

The GPD language also defines GPD file entries that control the following operations:

Compressing raster data

Handling color formats

Halftoning with Unidrv

Handling installable features and options

Describing printer memory configurations

This introductory section also includes discussions of master units, using multiple GPD files in a minidriver, and using resource DLLs in a minidriver.