Pscript Components

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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.

Pscript components consist of DLLs, plus text and binary data files, as illustrated in the following diagram:

diagram illustrating that pscript components consist of dlls, plus text and binary data files.

Components in the diagram include:

Application
A user application, such as a word processor, that provides users with printing capabilities.

gdi32.dll
User-mode DLL that exports Win32 GDI functions.

Kernel-Mode Graphics Engine
NT-based operating system executive code that implements GDI functionality.

Minidriver Text Files
Text-based Pscript minidrivers, created using PPD files.

Binary Data Files
Temporary files (with a .bpd extension) that Pscript creates after parsing information contained in minidriver text files.

ps5ui.dll
Pscript user interface DLL, providing common UI code for all Pscript-supported printers.

User Interface Plug-In
Optional, printer-specific, user interface plug-in.

compstui.dll
CPSUI user interface for printers.

pscript5.dll
Pscript renderer, which handles text output and renders images, then sends the text and image data to the print spooler.

Rendering Plug-In
Optional, printer-specific, rendering plug-in.