I print a lot of .pdf's, using the regular PCL5/6 drivers, and it seems to work just fine. It does take a little time (not that much) to convert the code, but it's not a big deal.

I recall reading that, since both postscript and the .pdf format were invented by Adobe, they go together much more smoothly for printing.

It's not a big/urgent question, but I'd appreciate any experience folks here have had with this "problem".

TIA

What's the question or issue?

acrobat reader says it supports both pdf and ps.
preview (mac) says it supports both ps and eps after an automatic conversion to pdf.
No idea if either one can export or save as postscript. But if you have a postscript printer driver, I suppose you can print it to a file. Is that even an option anymore? I have no idea. (I checked preview, there was no option to export to ps)

If you want a converter to ps, I guess you can check out xpdfreader, I don't know anything about it. It's open source and free. xpdfreader.com

I haven't done anything to generate a postscript file in decades. Everything is pdf now. I had a brief time with a postscript printer in the early-mid 90's which I ended up returning.

-David

Agree. What's the question or issue?

IME, excluding issues related to printer connection, spooling, as well as printer processing speed, how fast or slow a PDF file prints depends on the "original" file is structured. For example, if the PDF file is formed based on a scanned image, it will take longer to process.

I'm not looking to radically re-structure my printing needs. I'm just mentioning that I had heard ("many people have said"?) that .pdf's may print faster if you use a postscript driver for your printer.

No, I haven't used PS in a long time - when I load a driver for a printer it sometimes gets the PS driver loaded automatically, so I have it but I don't have a real use for it. The only time I use PS is when printing to my Xerox solid ink printer, which seems (to me) to do a better job on photos than PCL.

I'm just wondering if there's any truth to what I heard, or is it something that was true at one time but not so much today, or what? That's the question.

I am inclined to say no.

Personally, I am not familar with the "PS" technology. However, as I have mentioned above, there are various factors affecting the printing speed.

Unless the printer takes more than 10 seconds/page to print, I am not really worry about how PCL/PS can make the difference.

The speed of PDFs printing is limited by the printer, not the driver in my experience.

My Samsung laser is rated at 20 ppm, and that's roughly what I get. It doesn't matter if I'm printing PDFs or Word documents or whatever.